Healthy lifestyle can reduce AMD risk as much as three-fold

Since single aspects of diet or lifestyle are difficult to disentangle from each other, the common approaches to assessing the relationship between healthy lifestyle and AMD in observational studies may give erroneous or misleading results. This study, which concurrently took into account diet, exercise and smoking, found a significant positive effect of lifestyle modification on risk of AMD.

Researchers analyzed data from 1,313 women aged 55 to 74 enrolled in the Cartenoids in Age-Related Eye Disease Study who responded to a food frequency questionnaire administered at baseline.

Multivariate models showed that a healthy diet and increased physical activity were each independently associated with a significantly lower risk of early AMD. Although smoking was not independently associated with AMD, a combination of healthy diet, physical activity, and not smoking was associated with 71 percent lower odds for AMD (P < 0.001).

These results, the authors write, serve to remind us that risk for AMD is passed to subsequent generations not only through genes but also possibly through lifestyle habits.