Public Health and the EyeAlcohol and Eye Diseases
Section snippets
Definitions of Alcohol Consumption
Alcohol consumption is defined differently in various studies, in that the way in which heavy and light drinking is defined varies from study to study. For example, the Blue Mountains Eye Study (BMES)16 and Beaver Dam Eye Study (BDES)45 defined heavy drinking as ≥4 drinks per day. In contrast, the Los Angeles Latino Eye Study (LALES) defined heavy drinking as ≥5 drinks on any day within the past year.21 Therefore, alcohol consumption is defined according to the number of standard drinks per day
Alcohol and Age-Related Cataract
Evidence from recent epidemiological studies on the relationship of alcohol consumption and cataract is summarized in Table 1. The relationship of alcohol and cataract was initially observed in several clinic-based case-control studies.14, 62, 66 A study of 238 surgical patients with posterior subcapsular cataract found that drinkers who consumed >7 drinks/week were more likely to have cataract surgery, compared to those who consumed ≤7 drinks/week.62 Another case-control study reported that
Future Research
This review demonstrates that many existing studies investigating a possible adverse effect of alcohol consumption on different eye diseases have significant limitations, and interpretation of results should be within the context of these limitations. These limitations also highlight areas of future research.
First, alcohol consumption, which is usually measured by self-report, may be misclassified by study participants due to the social stigma attached to heavy consumption and alcoholism. In
Conclusion
This review demonstrates that there is no consistent evidence supporting a major role of moderate alcohol consumption in the development or progression of ocular conditions. The role of heavy alcohol consumption in eye disease is still unclear, due to the limited number of heavy drinkers in most study samples. In general, available data do not support harmful effect of mild to moderate alcohol intake on the eye. Thus, there is no indication at present to change current guidelines regarding
Method of Literature Search
A systematic search on Medline with coverage up to March 2007 was conducted using the following keywords: alcohol in various combinations with eye (9,641), eye disease (6,740), ocular (3,148), cataract (1,091), lens opacity (563), glaucoma (2,580), intraocular pressure (2,680), maculopathy (41), macular degeneration (96), diabetic retinopathy (314), retinal arterial occlusion (16), retinal venous occlusion (5). Following the reviewing of abstracts, the full text of relevant articles in English
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2021, Journal of Transport and HealthCitation Excerpt :Increasing age, higher education, and alcohol consumption were found to be positively associated with vision problems (AOR of 1.05, 2.19, and 2 respectively). There was evidence from previous research that visual difficulty was associated with older age (Freeman et al., 2013), and people with higher education levels were more likely to have sight problems (Mirshahi et al., 2014), and alcohol consumption was associated with decreased vision (Wang et al., 2008). Longer riding hours increased the likelihood of respiratory problems among motorcycle taxi drivers (AOR of 1.19).
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The authors reported no proprietary or commercial interest in any product mentioned or concept discussed in this article.