Approved Research

The eye and the endocrine, nutritional and metabolic disorders

Lay summary

Aims: The overall goal of this project is to investigate the causal association of eye diseases and retinal microvasculature with endocrine, nutritional and metabolic disorders. Specific aims are: 1) To explore the associations between major eye diseases and a wide range of endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases; 2) To explore the associations between retinal microvasculature derived from retinal imaging and endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases, as well as specific measures of hormones and nutritional levels. 3) To test the causal effect of endocrine, nutritional and metabolic disorders on eye diseases and retinal microvasculature.

Scientific rationale: The endocrine, nutritional and metabolic disorders and eye diseases are interrelated through several mechanisms thus, awareness of this relation has a great impact on early diagnosis and treatment. Several studies have been revealed that the endocrine, nutritional and metabolic disorders could significantly increase the risk of irreversible visual impairment. However, these studies were mainly observational, which were prone to reverse causation, confounding, and biases and could generate unreliable findings in relation to the causal effects of modifiable exposures on disease outcomes. The casual connection and evidence on genetic predisposition of these systemic disorders on major eye diseases remains unknown.

Scope extension:

The overall goal of this project is to investigate the causal association of eye diseases and retinal microvasculature with endocrine, nutritional and metabolic disorders including diabetes mellitus, reproductive disorder, ovarian dysfunction, testicular dysfunction, vitamin deficiency and obesity.

Specific aims are:

1.To explore the associations between major eye diseases and a wide range of endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases based on ICD diagnosis.

2.To explore the associations between retinal microvasculature derived from retinal imaging and endocrine, nutritional and metabolic diseases, as well as specific measures of hormones and nutritional levels.

3.To test the causal effect of endocrine, nutritional and metabolic disorders on eye diseases and retinal microvasculature.

4. To further explore the association between eye diseases, retinal microvasculature and cardiovascular, psychological diseases.