BMJ 2003;326:255-256 ( 1 February )

Papers

Cholesterol lowering drugs and risk of age related maculopathy: prospective cohort study with cumulative exposure measurement

R van Leeuwen, researcher a, J R Vingerling, ophthalmologist b, A Hofman, professor a, P T V M de Jong, professor a, B H Ch Stricker, professor a. 

a Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam, PO Box 1738, 3000 DR Rotterdam, the Netherlands, b Department of Ophthalmology, Erasmus Medical Centre Rotterdam, PO Box 2040, 3000 CA Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Correspondence to: P T V M de Jong, Netherlands Ophthalmic Research Institute, KNAW, Meibergdreef 47, 1105 BA Amsterdam, the Netherlands p.dejong@ioi.knaw.nl

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Recently, two studies have claimed that cholesterol lowering drugs, particularly statins, protect against age related maculopathy. 1 2 The end stage of this progressive retinal disorder is the commonest cause of untreatable blindness in elderly people in Western societies, and its prevalence is expected to rise with the ageing of the population. Thus, preventing this disorder would have an enormous public health impact.3 The above mentioned studies used interview data on drug use and had a low statistical power. We therefore tested the hypothesis that cholesterol lowering drugs protect against age related maculopathy in a large cohort study with cumulative exposure measured.


    Participants, methods, and results

This investigation was part of the Rotterdam study, a population based cohort study of people aged 55 years and more. After the baseline phase from 1990 to 1993, two follow up examinations were performed at mean intervals of 2 and 6.5 years. Of all the subjects at risk of age related maculopathy, 4822 (83%) participated at . . . [Full text of this article]
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