There is a link between eye conditions such as AMD or cataracts and an increased risk of dementia.
- The connection already existed between AMD, cataracts and risk of dementia but without knowing the role of associated chronic diseases
- These ophthalmic conditions would have a direct link with an increased risk of dementia
No causal link can be retained. Corn an observational study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology nevertheless concludes that there is an increased risk of dementia for people suffering from vision disorders such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) or cataracts. The connection between these eye diseases and cognitive disorders had already been made, but the British researchers wanted to know if it was not due to the impact on sight of chronic conditions such as hypertension, heart disease or stroke, all recognized risk factors for dementia.
Glaucoma rather associated with vascular dementia
Their study is based on the analysis of data from more than 12,000 adults aged 55 to 73 from 2006 and 2010 and until 2021. A period during which 2,304 cases of dementia were observed. And the conclusions of this work are formal: there is a link, apart from any other cause such as the chronic diseases mentioned above, between AMD and cataracts as well as vision disorders linked to diabetes and a risk of increased dementia. Among the ophthalmic conditions observed during this study, only glaucoma could be linked to another chronic disease and, moreover, it is not associated with an increased risk of Alzheimer’s type disease but with a risk of vascular dementia.
Specifically, the risk of dementia was 26% higher in people with AMD, 11% higher in people with cataracts and 61% higher in diabetic patients with vision disorders related to this condition. disease.
Self-reported data
“People with both ophthalmic and chronic conditions run a higher risk of dementia than those who suffer only from an ophthalmic condition”, underline the authors of this study, however insisting on the limits of the conclusions of their work which , as they point out, are based on self-reported data, medical records or death certificates which may underestimate the prevalence of ophthalmic diseases or infer a link between these diseases and cases of dementia when the latter would have occurred before the onset of eye disease.
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