A prospective study of dietary omega‐3 fatty acids and the risk of age‐related macular degeneration

Abstract

MethodFrom 1984 to 2008, we prospectively followed 67,206 women aged ≥ 50 y in the Nurses’ Health Study who had omega‐3 fatty acids intake assessed by a validated food frequency questionnaire and were free of AMD, cancer and cardiovascular disease at baseline.ResultsOver 24 years of follow‐up, we accrued 1,307 AMD cases with 700 early and 607 late AMD. Comparing the highest quintile to the lowest of docosahexaenoic acid intake, the multivariate‐adjusted hazard ratios (HR) for total, early and late AMD were 0.81 (95% confidence interval, 0.66, 0.99), 0.64 (0.48, 0.84; p for trend, 0.003), and 1.08 (0.80, 1.46), respectively. The results were similar for eicosapentaenoic acid. For alpha‐linolenic acid, the corresponding HRs were 1.26 (1.02, 1.57), 1.36 (1.02, 1.83; p for trend, 0.02) and 1.16 (0.84, 1.59). Compared with women who consumed seafood <1 serving/m, women who consumed ≥5 servings/wk had a HR of 0.50 (0.29, 0.87; p for trend, 0.004) for early AMD. The inverse associations between docosahexaenoic acid and total and early AMD were more evident in women <70 years old and those who took ≥1 tablet of aspirin/wk.ConclusionBoth docosahexaenoic acid and eicosapentaenoic acid were associated with decreased risk of early AMD but not late AMD. Alpha‐linolenic acid was associated with increased risk of early AMD and warrants further investigation. Higher intake of seafood may benefit primary prevention of AMD.