Low to moderate consumption of alcohol, particularly wine may be associated with a lower risk of undergoing cataract surgery, a new study published in the journal Ophthalmology suggests.
In a longitudinal observational study, researchers analysed self-reported alcohol consumption data from 469,387 participants of the UK Biobank cohort and 23,162 participants of the EPIC-Norfolk cohort.
After adjusting for covariables, drinkers versus non-drinkers had a lower likelihood of undergoing cataract surgery in the UK Biobank cohort (HR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.85-0.93) and the EPIC-Norfolk cohort (HR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.84-0.97).
Greater alcohol consumption was associated with a progressively lower risk of incident cataract surgery in the EPIC-Norfolk cohort (P<.001), whereas a U-shaped dose-response association between alcohol consumption and cataract surgery was seen in the UK Biobank cohort.
Compared with non-drinkers, the risk of cataract surgery was 23 per cent and 14 per cent lower in the highest tertile of wine drinkers in EPIC-Norfolk and UK Biobank cohorts, respectively.
"Given the observational nature of our study, it is not possible to determine if the protective association we observed of alcohol intake on cataract surgery is causal," the authors cautioned. Another limitation of the study is that cataract surgery may not be a perfect surrogate for visually significant cataract.
