Exploiting Nutrition on Delay Cataract

描述（由申请人提供）：白内障或晶状体混浊是视力障碍的主要原因。白内障摘除是最常见的手术，白内障相关问题的费用占医疗预算的最大项目。将白内障手术推迟10年将使白内障摘除手术数量减半，每年可节省超过10亿美元。研究表明，可以利用营养来减少与年龄有关的白内障的患病率或延缓其发展。然而，关于饮食主要成分（抗氧化剂除外）与白内障患病率或进展风险之间关系的流行病学研究很少。这些知识对于了解高风险或早期晶状体混浊的人是否可以从适当的饮食管理中受益是很重要的。这份NEI R03提案来自营养与视力项目（NVP）——塔夫茨大学与哈佛大学和哈佛医学院护士健康研究（NHS）的合作——利用独特的现有眼科和营养数据库来评估关于营养在多大程度上影响混浊患病率和进展的风险的三个先前未经验证的假设。NVP眼科数据集包括两组分级晶状体图像，从451名妇女（53-73岁）中收集，这些妇女是NHS的一个子集。NHS的数据集包括5份食物频率调查问卷的长期营养数据，以及其他个人和环境因素的大量数据，这些数据都是在基线眼科检查前的15年期间收集的。综合起来，这些数据将用于测试三个假设：白内障的风险较低的人：a)食用较高水平的特定脂肪（单不饱和、多不饱和和饱和膳食脂肪，n-3脂肪酸等），b)食用低血糖指数的食物，c)根据特定的饮食模式进食。

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.