Abdominal Obesity and Age-related Macular Degeneration

Abstract

Evidence for an association between age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and obesity is inconsistent. The authors examined associations between adiposity and AMD prevalence using 21,287 participants from the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study aged 40-69 years at baseline (1990-1994). For men, each increase of 0.1 in waist/hip ratio (~1 standard deviation) was associated with a 13% increase in the odds of early AMD (odds ratio = 1.13, 95% confidence interval: 1.01, 1.26; P = 0.03) and a 75% increase in the odds of late AMD (odds ratio = 1.75, 95% confidence interval: 1.11, 2.76; P = 0.02). No other adiposity measure was associated with early AMD for men. Smoking status modified the relation between waist/hip ratio and early AMD (P = 0.05), with no association for former smokers. For women, there were inverse associations with early AMD for all adiposity measures (odds ratios = 0.89-0.93; P = 0.002-0.02), but no associations were observed for late AMD. This study confirms abdominal obesity as an AMD risk factor for men despite a survivorship effect from competing risks in morbidity and mortality. The inverse associations for women may reflect weaker true positive associations with AMD that are insufficient to overcome the survivorship effect. New data are provided on complex interactions between environmental exposures and AMD risk.

Past physical activity and age-related macular degeneration: the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study

“…Along with the covariates already mentioned, education, body composition, genetics, diet and alcohol were included in the directed acyclic graph as they have previously been associated with the risk of AMD 18–21. Interactions between PA and sex were explored as exercise and PA patterns differ considerably between the sexes and interaction by sex has previously been reported when investigating the association between cardiovascular risk factors and AMD 20 22 23…”

Risk factors and biomarkers of age-related macular degeneration

“…In addition, Adams et al found that a 0.1 waist/hip ratio increase was correlated with a 13% chance increase of developing early AMD (P=0.03), and a 75% chance increase of developing late AMD (P=0.02). However, an inverse relationship was seen between waist/hip ratio and risk of AMD with women (Adams et al, 2011). Schaumberg et al found that increased body mass index was correlated with dry AMD in men.…”

“…ApoE is the major apolipoprotein of the CNS and an important regulator of cholesterol and lipid transport (Klaver et al, 1998). Since then, the ApoE gene, found on chromosome 19q13.2 (Adams et al, 2011), has been consistently shown to play a significant role in the development of AMD (Baird et al, 2004; Levy et al, 2015; Paun et al, 2015). The ApoE polymorphism rs2075650 has been strongly associated with early AMD (P=1.1x10 −6 ) (Holliday et al, 2013).…”

Hypoxia-Inducible Factor-1 (HIF-1): A Potential Target for Intervention in Ocular Neovascular Diseases

“…World Health Organization (WHO) global eye disease survey has revealed that more than 50 million people are affected with AMD and atleast one-third of them are blind or severely visually impaired [163]. Development of AMD is multifactorial including aging, smoking, genetic factors, obesity, hypertension and hypercholesterolemia [164-168]. The disease is characterized by degeneration of central retina leading to disturbed fine and color vision.…”