Cataract incidence linked to waist size

The study, which followed male health over several years, started in 1982 when 17,150 healthy male physicians aged 40-84 completed questionnaires each year for a 14-year period. Nine years into the study the physicians were mailed a measure to record their waist and hip circumferences. After adjustment for age, lifestyle and other factors, men with the highest waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) were 1.55 times more likely to develop cataract as those with the lowest WHR. In addition, the study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition this week, found that the tallest men in the study (at least 184cm, or 6 feet and taller) were 1.23 times more likely to develop cataract than shorter men, and 1.5 times more likely to undergo cataract surgery. Even when adjusting for eight potentially confounding variables, greater height and higher WHR were consistently associated with a greater relative risk of cataract. The authors have suggested a possible genetic susceptibility in the case of height. An accompanying editorial in the journal asked whether 'a cascade of disorders' such as hypertension, type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease and perhaps cataract shared a common etiology originating in abdominal adiposity and visceral fat.