Serum lipids tied to intraocular pressure

Serum total cholesterol (TC), high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), and low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) show a positive association with intraocular pressure (IOP), while triglyceride levels appear to have a negative association, reports a study.

A team of researchers conducted this cross-sectional study and included 94,323 participants from the UK Biobank (mean age 57 years) and 6,230 from the EPIC-Norfolk (mean age 68 years) cohorts with data on TC, HDL-C, LDL-C, and triglycerides collected between 2006 and 2009.

The associations between serum lipids and corneal-compensated IOP (IOPcc) were examined using multivariate linear regression adjusting for demographic, lifestyle, anthropometric, medical, and ophthalmic covariables.

After adjusting for key demographic, medical, and lifestyle factors, higher levels of TC, HDL-C, and LDL-C independently correlated with higher IOPcc in both cohorts.

In the UK Biobank cohort, each 1-standard deviation increase in TC, HDL-C, and LDL-C was associated with a higher IOPcc by 0.09 mm Hg (95 percent confidence interval [CI], 0.06‒0.11; p<0.001), 0.11 mm Hg (95 percent CI, 0.08‒0.13; p<0.001), and 0.07 mm Hg (95 percent CI, 0.05‒0.09; p<0.001), respectively.

In the EPIC-Norfolk cohort, each 1-standard deviation increase in TC, HDL-C, and LDL-C led to an increase in IOPcc by 0.19 mm Hg (95 percent CI, 0.07‒0.31; p=0.001), 0.14 mm Hg (95 percent CI, 0.03‒0.25; p=0.016), and 0.17 mm Hg (95 percent CI, 0.06‒0.29; p=0.003).

Moreover, triglyceride levels were inversely associated with IOP in the UK Biobank (‒0.05 mm Hg, 95 percent CI, ‒0.08 to ‒0.03; p<0.001), but this was not replicated in the EPIC-Norfolk cohort (p=0.30).

“Future research is required to assess whether these associations are causal in nature,” the researchers said.