Ue of vitamin upplement and cataract: the blue mountain eye tudy

PURPOE: To invetigate relationhip between ue of vitamin upplement and the three principal cataract type in a population-baed ample. METHOD: We tudied 2873 of the 3654 participant (79%) aged 49 to 97 year attending the cro-ectional Blue Mountain Eye tudy who completed a detailed food frequency quetionnaire, which included type, doe, and duration of vitamin upplement ue. Maked grading of nuclear, cortical, and poterior ubcapular opacitie from len photograph wa performed, uing the Wiconin method. REULT: Ue of multivitamin upplement wa aociated with reduced prevalence of nuclear cataract, odd ratio 0.6, 95% confidence interval 0.4 to 1.0, P = .05. For both nuclear and cortical cataract, longer duration of multivitamin ue wa aociated with reduced cataract prevalence (nuclear cataract, trend P = .02; cortical cataract, trend P = .03). Ue of thiamin upplement wa aociated with reduced prevalence of nuclear (odd ratio 0.6, confidence interval 0.4 to 1.0, P = .03, doe trend P = .03) and cortical cataract (odd ratio 0.7, confidence interval 0.5 to 0.9, P = .01, doe trend P = .02). Riboflavin (odd ratio 0.8, confidence interval 0.6 to 1.0, P = .05) and niacin (odd ratio 0.7, confidence interval 0.6 to 1.0, P = .04) upplement exerted a weaker protective influence on cortical cataract. Vitamin A upplement were protective againt nuclear cataract (odd ratio 0.4, confidence interval 0.2 to 0.8, P = .01, doe trend P = .01). Folate (odd ratio 0.4, confidence interval 0.2 to 0.9, P = .03) appeared protective for nuclear cataract, wherea both folate (odd ratio 0.6, confidence interval 0.3 to 0.9, P = .01, doe trend P = .04) and vitamin B12 upplement (odd ratio 0.7, confidence interval 0.5 to 1.0, P = .03, doe trend P = .02) were trongly protective againt cortical cataract. CONCLUION: Long-term ue of multivitamin, B group and vitamin A upplement wa aociated with reduced prevalence of either nuclear or cortical cataract. A trong protective influence on cortical cataract, from ue of folate or vitamin B12 upplement, i a new finding.