Low lifestyle scores were driven by a lack of adherence to the Mediterranean diet, with low vegetable and fish intake being more prominent.
A lifestyle scoring form can help understand the lifestyle of patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to new findings.
Out of a maximum total lifestyle score of 14 points, 42% of patients in the current study population with AMD (n = 38) had a score of ≤6, with only 2 (6%) scoring a ≥10. .
“This lifestyle form provides an easy tool to gain an insight into the lifestyle of AMD patients and can help motivate them to improve their daily habits to reduce the impact of their genetic risk,” he said. wrote study author MA Meester-Smoor, Department of Ophthalmology, Erasmus. MC.
The results were presented at the Annual Congress of the Dutch Ophthalmological Society.
Meester-Smoor and colleagues noted that physicians find it challenging to address lifestyle changes in this patient population, regardless of current insight into the benefits of a healthy lifestyle, including reduced risk of progression by half.
As such, they have developed an easy-to-use lifestyle scoring form for patients with intermediate or unilateral late AMD who may also be at risk for severe visual loss. The forms of scoring they have developed are based on risk estimates for lifestyle factors from validated studies.
Included patients received scores for smoking, Mediterranean diet, exercise, and body mass index (BMI). Meanwhile, each overall result was awarded 1 point, with a maximum score of 13 points. They then determined the total genetic risk tertiles by genotyping the 52 known common variants, according to the researchers.
The researchers collected this information from 38 AMD patients with intermediate or unilateral late AMD. They found that low scores are generally the result of non-adherence to the Mediterranean diet, with low vegetable and fish intake being the most prominent observed.
They noted that the majority of patients (56%) had a higher risk of genetic predisposition.
The study, “Lifestyle Scoring for Macular Degeneration Patients in Age to Promote Change,” was presented at NOG 2022.
