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Gerald McGwin, Jr, PhD; Kayvon Modjarrad, MSPH; Tyler Andrew Hall, MD; Aiyuan Xie, MS; Cynthia Owsley, PhD

Arch Ophthalmol. 2006;124:33-37.

Objective  To evaluate both the use of cholesterol-lowering medications as a group and the use of statins specifically with regard to the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Methods  A case-control study was conducted using data from the Cardiovascular Health Study, a population-based prospective study of adults enrolled from 4 communities in the United States in 1989 and 1990. Individuals with AMD (cases) and those without AMD (controls) were compared with regard to their use of cholesterol-lowering medications and statins.

Results  Nearly equal proportions of cases and controls used cholesterol-lowering medications, both before adjustment (odds ratio, 0.92; 95% confidence interval, 0.70-1.21) and after adjustment for selected confounding variables (age, sex, and race) (odds ratio, 1.35; 95% confidence interval, 0.98-1.87). Statin use was also found to be similar among cases and controls (odds ratio, 0.98; 95% confidence interval, 0.73-1.30). After controlling for the aforementioned 3 confounders (odds ratio, 1.40; 95% confidence interval, 0.99-1.98), we noted a modest trend for statin users to have an increased risk of AMD.

Conclusion  The results suggest that no association exists between having used cholesterol-lowering medications and AMD. However, there was a suggestion that statin use might increase the risk of AMD.

Author Affiliations: Department of Ophthalmology, School of Medicine (Dr McGwin, Mr Modjarrad, Dr Hall, Ms Xie, and Dr Owsley); Department of Epidemiology and International Health, School of Public Health (Dr McGwin); Section of Trauma, Burns, and Surgical Critical Care, Division of General Surgery, Department of Surgery, School of Medicine (Dr McGwin), University of Alabama at Birmingham.

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