Plasma Fibrinogen Levels, Other Cardiovascular Risk Factors, and Age-Related Maculopathy

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Abstract
EXCEPT FOR smoking,1-7 several cardiovascular diseases and risk factors have been found to have statistically significant associations with age-related maculopathy (ARM). These include systemic hypertension,8-10 a previous diagnosis of vascular events,4,8,10,11 high serum cholesterol levels,2,12 and body mass index (BMI).12,13 Few of the cardiovascular associations found in individual studies have been consistently reproduced, however. These conflicting findings could result from measurement error in the exposure and outcome variables; selection bias, ie, differences in the systematic recruitment of cases and noncases or exposed and nonexposed subjects, leading to a bias in estimating associations; nonadjustment or incomplete adjustment for confounding variables because either the confounder was not measured or it was measured with error; no true associations and the observed associations are due to random noise; or nonuniform and inconsistent relationships across populations with different genetic makeups that may be exposed to different environmental risk factors.