Genetic variants in three genes and smoking show strong associations with susceptibility to exudative age-related macular degeneration in a Chinese population

Is sunlight exposure a risk factor for age-related macular degeneration? A systematic review and meta-analysis

“…Four studies12 15 18 19 used the estimated hours spent outdoors per day. Six studies 10 11 14 17 20 21 assessed individuals’ exposure based on their jobs, and people with outdoor jobs were divided into the exposed group. The other study,16 which was conducted in Japan, used a special method based on the total length of facial wrinkles in the region of the upper cheek and temporal areas next to the eyes; individuals with lengths greater than 0.1314 were considered the more exposed group.…”

“…Protective measures taken by the exposed group could also lessen sunlight radiation and lower the true risk. Second, among the 14 studies, only five12 14 15 18 21 were conducted in developing countries. As we mentioned above, a greater level of economic development implies a better healthcare system and more awareness of the benefits of protection from the sun.…”

Association of CFH Y402H Polymorphism with Both Forms of Advanced Age-Related Macular Degeneration in Turkish Patients

“…The absence of homozygote genotype for double risk allele implies us that AMD susceptibility may not be directly related with the number of risk alleles as previously mentioned by Chu. 28 On the other hand, several studies conducted with different Asian populations did not show an association between Y402H polymorphism and AMD. 9,27,[30][31][32][33] Unlike the Asian populations, CFH Y402H has been determined as an important genetic risk factor for developing AMD in US, UK, Australian and European populations.…”

“…Nevertheless, similar results were obtained from another study carried out with Han Chinese patients. 28 In the Han Chinese population where CFH Y402H polymorphism was found to be associated with AMD, only one CC homozygote was detected among 144 AMD patients. In the same way, Lin 6 and Lau 29 also published similar results in which Y402H polymorphism was significantly associated with AMD in spite of very low CC genotype frequencies in the case groups (6% and 3.7%, respectively).…”

Age-related macular degeneration and the complement system

“…Despite this varying frequency, associations of Y402H in the CFH gene with AMD have been seen in non-Caucasian ethnic groups, including Chinese (Lau et al 2006;Chu et al 2008;Gao et al 2010;Liu et al 2010), Taiwanese Chinese (Lin et al 2008;Liu et al 2009), Indian (Kaur et al 2006), Black (Klein et al 2008b) and Israeli (Chowers et al 2008) populations. An association has also been noted in Hispanics in the USA (Klein et al 2008b), although another study found an association with AMD progression and not AMD prevalence in this population group (Tedeschi-Blok et al 2007).…”