Antioxidant-rich diets and glaucoma prevention: Insights from dietary oxidative balance scores in NHANES 2005-2008

Abstract

Background: Oxidative stress plays a key role in the pathogenesis of glaucoma, and by assessing the Dietary Oxidative Balance Score (DOBS), an individual's antioxidant status can be reflected. This article aims to investigate the correlation of DOBS with glaucoma using 2005-2008 NHANES data.

Methods: The cross-sectional research involved participants aged 20 years or older who finished the NHANES interview on dietary intake and the vision and eye health questionnaire. DOBS was derived from 16 dietary factors, and the self-reported glaucoma diagnosis was employed. To investigate the correlation between DOBS and glaucoma, weighted logistic regression and sensitivity analyses were carried out utilizing propensity score matching (PSM), and the potential nonlinear correlations were examined using restricted cubic spline (RCS) curves.

Results: Our study involved 4909 participants in total. Following adjustment for all covariates, logistic regression indicated that each unit increase in DOBS was linked to a 4% decrease in the risk of glaucoma (OR = 0.96, 95% CI: 0.92, 0.99, p = 0.02). Upon converting DOBS to a categorical variable, a negative correlation was found between DOBS and self-reported glaucoma in Q4 (OR = 0.39, 95% CI: 0.19, 0.79, p = 0.013) vs. Q1. RCS curves indicated that DOBS was significantly, negatively, and linearly correlated with the prevalence of glaucoma (Nonlinearity p-value = 0.493).

Conclusion: In an analysis of the NHANES database, our study concluded that a higher Dietary Oxidative Balance Score (DOBS) was significantly associated with a lower prevalence of glaucoma. This suggests that an antioxidant-rich diet may help prevent glaucoma.