Over the past two decades there has been substantial progress in linking nutrition to sight threatening diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD), glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy. The most notable associations have been found with respect to AMD, with both epidemiological studies and clinical trials demonstrating the benefits of antioxidant nutrients (vitamins C and E, zinc, carotenoids such as lutein and zeaxanthin, and fruit and vegetables rich in these nutrients). While regulation of blood sugar is essential for preventing sight threatening complications of diabetes some small studies have suggested that certain micro nutrients such as chromium, isoflavones with soy proteins and Vitamin E might provide additional benefits. There is also evidence highlighting the beneficial effects of dietary antioxidants in the prevention of Glaucoma. Recent research has also moved from investigating individual nutrients to looking at diets more holistically used dietary pattern analysis and dietary scores.
Many studies to date however, are relatively small and often only cross-sectional in design limiting their power to detect associations, the UK Biobank provides an exciting opportunity to explore the relationships between diet and sight threatening ocular diseases in a very large well-characterised prospective cohort. In the longer term the sample size will enable gene-environment interactions to be explored in conjunction with the genetics group which will provide novel information on how genetic predisposition interacts with lifestyle in the development of AMD, Diabetic Retinopathy and Glaucoma. In the future the relationship between diet and other ocular disease may also be possible as grading of the ophthalmic images progresses.
Objectives:
1. To investigate the association between diet and AMD, Diabetic Retinopathy and Glaucoma.
2. Explore how these relationships relate or are modified by systemic factors identified by the blood biochemistry results e.g. markers of inflammation, redox balance etc.
3. Explore the existence of gene-environment interactions between dietary and lifestyle factors in AMD, Diabetic Retinopathy and Glaucoma.
