By David Liu, PHD

Tuesday Dec 11, 2012 (foodconsumer.org) -- Drinking alcohol is known to cause a range of health conditions including breast cancer and other types, brain shrinkage, and birth defects if you are pregnant among others.  A new study in Ophthalmic Epidemiology suggests that drinking alcohol can also cause visual impairment or cause damage to the eye vision.

Amy Z. Fan  from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, USA and colleagues conducted the study and found drinking more than one serving of alcohol a day was associated with 21 per cent increased risk of visual impairment among current drinkers.

Additionally the researchers found binge drinking was associated with 32 percent increased risk of visual impairment among current drinkers.

But overall, drinking alcohol was not associated with distance and/or near vision impairment after adjustment for all sorts of confounders including age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, smoking status, body mass index, history of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, and eye diseases,  the study found.

The study involved 42,713 adults aged 50 years or older in 2005 and 2006 when they were enrolled in the Visual Impairment and Access to Eye Care program.

The researchers concluded "Among current drinkers, drinking patterns were significantly associated with near and distance vision impairment."