Purpose: An association between hypermetropia and hypertension was recently reported. We sought to verify this finding in the Blue Mountains Eye Study cohort (n = 3654; ages 49 to 97 years).
Design: Cohort study.
Methods: We defined hypermetropia as mean spheric equivalent refraction (SER) > 1.00 diopter, myopia as mean SER < -1.00 diopters, and emmetropia as mean SER < or = 1.00 diopters and > or = -1.00 diopters, inclusive. We used the 2003 World Health Organization/International Society of Hypertension guidelines to define severe hypertension as grade 2 or higher.
Results: Of 1290 people who were at risk of the development of hypertension, 378 people developed incident severe hypertension after five years. The multivariate-adjusted relative risk of incident hypertension in persons with hypermetropia compared with those with emmetropia was 1.06 (95% CI, 0.89 to 1.26); the relative risk in persons with myopia was 1.22 (95% CI, 0.96 to 1.56).
Conclusion: Neither hypermetropia nor myopia was associated with incident hypertension in this older population.