Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Oct;37(15):3234-3242.
doi: 10.1038/s41433-023-02498-9. Epub 2023 Mar 27.

Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of cataract: insights from the UK Biobank study

Huiya Fan  1 , Xiaotong Han  2 , Xianwen Shang  2 , Zhuoting Zhu  2 , Mingguang He  2   3   4 , Guihua Xu  1 , Zilin Chen  1 , Ruidong Deng  5
Affiliations

Fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of cataract: insights from the UK Biobank study

Huiya Fan et al. Eye (Lond). 2023 Oct.

Abstract

Purpose: A prospective cohort study to investigate the association between fruit and vegetable (F&V) intake and the risk of cataract.

Methods: We included 72,160 participants who were free of cataract at baseline from the UK Biobank. Frequency and type of F&V intake were assessed using a web-based 24 h dietary questionnaire from 2009 to 2012. Development of cataract during the follow-up was defined by self-report or hospital inpatient records up to 2021. Cox proportional regression models were used to estimate the association between F&V intake and incident cataract.

Results: During a mean follow-up of 9.1 years, 5753 participants developed cataract with a corresponding incidence of 8.0%. After adjusting for multiple demographic, medical and lifestyle covariates, higher intake of F&V were associated with a lower risk of cataract (≥6.5 vs. <2 servings/week: hazards ratio [HR]: 0.82, 95% CI: 0.76 to 0.89; P < 0.0001). Regarding specific types, significant reduced risk of cataract was found for higher intake of legumes (P = 0.0016), tomatoes (≥5.2 vs. <1.8 servings/week: HR: 0.94, 95% CI: 0.88 to 1.00), and apple and pear (>7 vs. <3.5 servings/week: 0.89, 95% CI: 0.83 to 0.94; P < 0.0001), but not for cruciferous vegetables, green leafy vegetables, berry, citrus fruit or melon. Smokers were found to benefit more from F&V intake than former and never smokers. Men also could benefit more from higher vegetable intake than women.

Conclusions: More F&V intake, especially legumes, tomatoes, apple, and pear, was associated with a lower risk of cataract in this UK Biobank cohort.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. Participants selection flowchart.
Study flowchart of population selection from the UK Biobank.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Blindness GBD, Vision Impairment C, Vision Loss Expert Group of the Global Burden of Disease S. Causes of blindness and vision impairment in 2020 and trends over 30 years, and prevalence of avoidable blindness in relation to VISION 2020: the right to sight: an analysis for the global burden of disease study. Lancet Glob Health. 2021;9:e144–e60. doi: 10.1016/S2214-109X(20)30489-7. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Boyd M, Kvizhinadze G, Kho A, Wilson G, Wilson N. Cataract surgery for falls prevention and improving vision: modelling the health gain, health system costs and cost-effectiveness in a high-income country. Inj Prev. 2020;26:302–9. doi: 10.1136/injuryprev-2019-043184. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Shader RI. Falls, frailty, vision, and aging. Clin Ther. 2019;41:369–72.. doi: 10.1016/j.clinthera.2019.02.002. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Rudnicka E, Napierala P, Podfigurna A, Meczekalski B, Smolarczyk R, Grymowicz M. The World Health Organization (WHO) approach to healthy ageing. Maturitas. 2020;139:6–11. doi: 10.1016/j.maturitas.2020.05.018. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Han X, Zhang J, Liu Z, Tan X, Jin G, He M, et al. Real-world visual outcomes of cataract surgery based on population-based studies: a systematic review. Br J Ophthalmol. 2022. - PMC - PubMed