Exploiting Nutrition on Delay Cataract

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Cataract, or opacification of the lens, is a major cause of visual disability. Cataract extraction is the most frequently performed surgery and costs for cataract-related problems account for the largest line item in the Medicare budget. Delaying cataract by 10 years would halve the number of cataract extractions and save over $1 billion annually. Studies suggest that nutrition may be exploited to diminish the prevalence of or retard the progress of age-related cataract. However, there is little epidemiologic research regarding relations between major components of diet (other than for antioxidants) and risk for prevalence or progress of cataract. This knowledge is important in order to know if people at high risk or with early lens opacities might benefit from proper dietary management. This NEI R03 proposal from the Nutrition and Vision Project (NVP) - a collaboration between Tufts University and the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) at Harvard University and Harvard Medical School - exploits unique existing ophthalmologic and nutritional databases to assess three previously untested hypotheses about the extent to which nutrition affects risk for prevalence and progress of opacification. The NVP ophthalmologic data set includes two sets of graded lens images, gathered five years apart, from 451 women (ages 53-73 y) who are a subset of the NHS. The NHS data set includes long-term nutritional data from 5 food frequency questionnaires and a plethora of data on other personal and environmental factors, all gathered during a 15-year period before the baseline eye exam. Combined, these data will be used to test three hypotheses: that risk for cataract is lower in persons who a) consume higher levels of specific fats (monounsaturated, polyunsaturated, and saturated dietary fats, n-3 fatty acids, etc.), b) consume lower glycemic index foods, and c) eat according to particular dietary patterns.