Mineral Metabolites and Risk of Retinal Abnormalities

We propose to investigate phosphate-associated microvascular toxicity in the retina, which is the only microvascular bed that can be easily visualized non-invasively in vivo. In preliminary work for this application, we demonstrate that higher serum phosphate is independently associated with increased retinopathy severity. We now propose to extend this line of investigation by prospectively exploring, for the first time, phosphate as a novel risk factor for retinal vascular disease. We will evaluate phosphate and retinal disease in ~3000 individuals who underwent repeated longitudinal fundus assessments over 10 years in the prospective Beaver Dam Eye Study.