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

Eye volume 39, pages 2527–2533 (2025)Cite this article

Subjects

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.

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Fig. 1: Flowchart of participant selection.
Fig. 2: Restricted Cubic Splines (RCS) Curve for the DOBS ratio before matching.
Fig. 3: Forest plot of subgroup analysis of the correlation between DOBS and glaucoma across different populations.

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Data availability

Data described in the manuscript, code book, and analytic code will be made available upon request pending.

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Funding

This work was supported by Jilin Province Department of Finance(the Health Research Talent Project of Jilin Province, grant number2023SCZ86) and Higher Education Association of Jilin Province (grant number: JGJX2023D13).

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Hong Zhang, Xun Wu, Shuimiao Jia.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ophthalmology, China-Japan Union Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Yuqi Yang, Hong Zhang, Shuimiao Jia, Shuqing Wang & Hongyan Zhou

  2. Department of Ultrasound, China-Japan Union Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun, China

    Xun Wu

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  1. Yuqi Yang
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  2. Hong Zhang
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Writing - original draft preparation: Yuqi Yang, Hongyan Zhou, Xun Wu, Shuimiao Jia, Shuqing Wang, Hong Zhang; Writing - review and editing: Yuqi Yang; Conceptualization: Yuqi Yang; Methodology: Yuqi Yang; Formal analysis and investigation: Yuqi Yang, Shuimiao Jia, Shuqing Wang, Xun Wu, Hong Zhang; Funding acquisition: Hongyan Zhou; Resources: Hongyan Zhou; Supervision: Hongyan Zhou, and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Hongyan Zhou.

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Yang, Y., Zhang, H., Wu, X. et al. Antioxidant-rich diets and glaucoma prevention: Insights from dietary oxidative balance scores in NHANES 2005–2008. Eye 39, 2527–2533 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41433-025-03911-1

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