Association between dietary antioxidant indices and glaucoma in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Objective: To explore the relationship between dietary antioxidant indices (DAI) and glaucoma using the data from the 2005 to 2008 National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).Methods: Our study comprised participants who completed the NHANES dietary intake interview and visual health questionnaire at age 40 or older. The intakes of the vitamins A, C, and E as well as of zinc, selenium, and magnesium were used to generate the DAI, which represents the overall antioxidant qualities. The self-report method for glaucoma diagnosis (ever been told by an eye doctor) was used. Survey logistic regression analyses were employed to investigate the association between DAI and glaucoma.Results: A total of 6,128 participants were included in our study. The unadjusted model's findings revealed a negative correlation between dietary antioxidant indices and self-reported glaucoma [0.93 (0.90, 0.96), p < 0.0001]. For every unit increase in dietary antioxidant indices, the risks of self-reported glaucoma in model 1 (adjusted for age, sex, race, marital status and PIR) decreased by 5% [0.95 (0.90, 0.99), p = 0.02]. After adjusting all the covariates (model 2), the risks of self-reported glaucoma decreased by 6% [0.94 (0.90, 0.99), p = 0.02] for each unit increase of dietary antioxidant indices. After converting DAI into classified variables (tertile), the same trend was found (p = 0.001).Conclusion: In this analysis of the NHANES database, we found higher dietary antioxidant indices were associated with lower risk of glaucoma.

Automated summary

This study analyzed the NHANES database and found that higher dietary antioxidant indices were associated with a lower risk of glaucoma.