From the American Academy of Ophthalmology

Using hospital admissions data in England, investigators evaluated a cohort of 65,894 people admitted or treated for AMD over a 12-year period, as well as a cohort of 168,092 people with dementia and a large control group. Among AMD patients, the rate ratio for subsequently developing Alzheimer’s disease was 0.86; 0.91 for dementia.  Although the diseases share environmental risk factors – such as smoking, hypertension, high blood cholesterol and deposition of plaques in the brain – AMD and Alzheimer’s disease appear to have different genetic risk factors. JAMA Ophthalmology, November 2013