Macular Degeneration Risk & Belly Fat

Abdominal "belly fat" may increases the risk of Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) in middle-age men but may have the opposite effect in women, according to researchers reporting on a study in the March 2011 American Journal of Epidemiology. AMD is a leading cause of blindness in older people, and treatment options are limited. An Australian study on Abdominal Obesity followed 21,287 from their 40s to mid-80s and found that each 0.1 increase in the waist/hip ratio was associated with a 13% increased chance of developing early-stage AMD and a 75% increased chance of the more severe late-stage AMD, but only in men. Abdominal obesity actually reduced early AMD risk in women by 7% to 11%. There were 2,694 early and 122 late cases of AMD in the study, which followed the incidences of AMD from 2003 to 2007. The researchers suggest that abdominal fat releases estrogen and other chemicals that may contribute to inflammation associated with AMD while the inverse association in women could reflect a genetic resilience to disease seen in older people called the survivorship effect plus the protective effects of long-term estrogen exposure, they said. However, specific information about the onset and duration of obesity wasn't considered and the AMD was only measured at follow-up, so the progression of the disease wasn't tracked.

Macular Degeneration & Diet Factors

Dietary factors are known risk factors for Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) which is the leading cause of vision loss among persons aged 65 and above. In particular, high glycemic index diets have been hypothesized as a risk factor for AMD. Glycemic Index is a measure of the effect of carbohydrates on blood sugar levels. Most fruits and vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts and fructose products low in carbohydrates and have a low glycemic index. Most foods like baked potatoes, extruded breakfast cereals, white bread, white rice and corn flakes are high glycemic index foods.

Researchers reporting in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition studied the association between dietary glycemic index and the 10 year incidence of AMD in the Blue Mountain Eye Study population. Over 10 years, 208 of 1810 persons developed early AMD. After age, smoking, other risk factors, and dietary constituents were adjusted for, a higher mean dietary glycemic index was associated with an increased 10 year risk of early AMD. Conversely, a greater consumption of cereal fiber and breads and cereals (predominantly lower glycemic index foods such as oatmeal) was associated with a reduced risk of incident early AMD. No relation was observed with late AMD. The researchers concluded that a high glycemic index diet is a risk factor for early AMD—the recognized precursor of sight threatening late AMD. Low glycemic-index foods such as oatmeal may protect against early AMD.

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