WEDNESDAY, Oct. 21, 2026 (HealthDay News) -- Crude odds ratios suggest an increased risk for age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in association with glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1 RA) use, but this finding is reversed after adjustment for cardiometabolic confounding variables, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, held Oct. 9 to 12 in New Orleans.
Franklin Ye Ruan, from the Carle Illinois College of Medicine in Urbana, and colleagues examined the association between GLP-1 RA use and AMD in a case-control analysis of more than 300 million patients from Epic Cosmos, controlling for confounding clinical covariates.
Overall, 15,385,073 of the 300,410,753 patients had GLP-1 RA exposure, 1,384,467 had AMD, and 115,056 patients had both. The researchers found that the crude odds ratios for any AMD, dry AMD, and wet AMD were 1.68, 1.89, and 1.53, respectively. The direction of the odds ratios was reversed with Mantel-Haenszel adjustment after accounting for type 2 diabetes mellitus (odds ratios, 0.69 and 0.62 for any and wet AMD, respectively), hypertension (odds ratios, 0.65 and 0.59 for any and wet AMD), or hyperlipidemia (odds ratios, 0.63 and 0.57 for any and wet AMD). For wet AMD, the reversal was most pronounced. Odds ratios were attenuated to 1.17 with adjustment for body mass index, and age was associated with an increase in odds ratios to 1.94.
"Our hope is that these findings encourage more rigorous studies on GLP-1 medications and macular degeneration, taking other underlying health conditions into account," Ruan said in a statement.
