Visualization of Dietary Patterns and Their Associations With AMD

Journal Highlights

Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science
2017;58(3):1404-1410

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Chiu et al. set out to visualize the relationship among predominant dietary patterns and their associations with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) through a qualitative analysis process encompassing logistic regression, Boolean algebra, and Venn diagrams. They first identified 2 major and 8 minor dietary patterns and evaluated which were healthy, unhealthy, or neutral in relation to AMD.

A total of 8,103 eyes from 4,088 participants from the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) were classified into 3 groups: control (n = 2,739), early AMD (n = 4,599), and advanced AMD (n = 765). Using principal component analysis, the researchers characterized 2 major (Oriental and Western) and 8 minor dietary patterns. In general, the 8 minor patterns were subsets or extensions of the 2 major dietary patterns but consisted of fewer characteristic foods. Unlike the 2 major patterns, which were more strongly associated (positively or negatively) with both early and advanced AMD, none of the 8 minor patterns were associated with early AMD, and only 4 minor patterns, including the Steak pattern (odds ratio [OR] comparing the highest to lowest quintile of the pattern score, 1.73), the Breakfast pattern (OR, 0.60), and the Caribbean pattern (OR, 0.64) showed significant association with advanced AMD. The research also suggested several potentially beneficial foods for AMD, including peanuts, pizza, coffee, and tea.

The researchers concluded that a diet of various healthful foods may be optimal for reducing AMD risk. They recommended further study on the effects of certain specific foods in the context of overall diet.

The original article can be found here.