Does daily Alcohol intake increase the risk of Age-related Macular Degeneration?

A recent article published in Current Eye Research, brought out that with moderate and high alcohol use may raise the incidence of early age-related macular degeneration (AMD), but not late AMD..

AMD is a degenerative retinal disease that affects people of all ages. In 2015, it was responsible for 4.4 percent of vision impairment and 5.9 percent of blindness in adults aged 50 and up around the world, and it is expected to affect 288 million people by 2040.

This study was conducted by Jingjing Zhang and team with the objective to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the relationship between alcohol use and the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) using a meta-analytical method.

The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analyses criteria were used to perform systematic literature research for this study. For early and late AMD, categorical and dose–response meta-analysis were conducted separately. Pooled effect estimates with 95 percent confidence intervals were calculated using a fixed-effect model.

The key findings of this study are as follow:

1. The analysis included seven trials with 4,566 cases of early AMD and 440 cases of late AMD, respectively.

2. The pooled effect estimates for early AMD with moderate (1.19, 95 percent CI [1.03–1.37]) and high (1.24, [1.10–1.39]) alcohol use, but not light (0.95, [0.90–1.06]) alcohol consumption, were statistically significant when compared to nondrinkers or occasional drinkers.

3. The pooled effect estimates for late AMD with light (1.03, [0.79–1.33]), moderate (1.13, [0.83–1.55]), and heavy (0.98, [0.63–1.53]) alcohol intake were negligible.

4. Alcohol intake and the risk of early AMD were shown to have a linear dose–response association (P.05), with a pooled effect estimate of 1.14 (1.08–1.21) for an increase in alcohol consumption of 10 g/day.

In conclusion, this meta-analysis found a linear dose–response connection between moderate and high alcohol use and the risk of early AMD, but not late AMD. Nonetheless, caution is essential when it comes to public health recommendations for alcohol use for AMD protection, which should take into account the risk of other diseases as well.

Reference:

Zhang J, Mitsuhashi T, Matsuo T, Yorifuji T, Hamada J, Liu Y. Alcohol Consumption and Age-related Macular Degeneration: A Systematic Review and Dose-response Meta-analysis. Curr Eye Res. 2021 Dec;46(12):1900-1907. doi:10.1080/02713683.2021.1942070. Epub 2021 Jun 30. PMID: 34115943.