A prospective study of alcohol consumption and cataract extraction among US women

PURPOSE: Alcohol consumption has been implicated in the pathogenesis of cat aract in some, but not all analytic studies. To date, no prospective analys is of the relationship between alcohol consumption and cataract has been co nducted in women. METHODS: We examined the association between alcohol consumption and catara ct extraction in a prospective cohort of female registered nurses. In 1980, 50,461 women were included and others were added as they became 45 years o f age for a total of 77,466 women. Information on alcohol consumption and i ncidence of senile cataract extraction was ascertained during 12 years of f ollow-up with biennial questionnaires. RESULTS: We observed 1468 cases of cataract extraction in 761,036 person-ye ars of follow-up. Compared to nondrinkers, those consuming alcohol were not at increased risk of cataract, even up to 25 grams or more per day (2 or m ore drinks) (relative risk [RR] = 1.10, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.90 , 1.35). Results remained unchanged after controlling for cataract risk fac tors including cigarette smoking, body mass index, and diabetes. When risk was examined for specific cataract subtypes only, those in the highest cate gory of consumption had a multivariate relative risk of 1.10 (95% CI = 0.74 , 1.62) for nuclear cataracts and 1.50 (95% CI = 0.98, 2.30) for posterior subcapsular cataracts only. CONCLUSIONS: These prospective data suggest that there is no substantial ov erall increased risk of senile cataract due to alcohol intake. The possibil ity that alcohol consumption leads to a modest increased risk of posterior subcapsular type opacities requiring extraction merits further exploration. Ann Epidemiol 2000;10:347-353. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights r eserved.