Systemic inflammation associated with high myopia: Evidence from NHANES 2001–2008

Limited evidence has shown the relationship between systemic inflammation and high myopia. Thus, we conducted this study to explore this issue. A total of 2891 participants (2891 eyes) aged ≤40 years were included in this cross-sectional study. Four systemic inflammation markers were calculated through blood cell counts: systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio, and lymphocyte-to-monocyte ratio. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression analyses, as well as restricted cubic spline analyses, were used to assess the relationship between systemic inflammation markers and high myopia. The incidence of mild and moderate myopia was 67.24% (1944 eyes), and the incidence of high myopia was 4.6% (133 eyes) in this US population. After adjusting for covariates, multivariate logistic regression analysis revealed that high myopia was associated with white blood cell counts (odds ratio [OR] = 0.242, P = .027), neutrophils (OR = 4.052, P = .033), lymphocytes (OR = 4.989, P = .021), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (OR = 0.621, P = .025), and SII (OR = 1.002, P = .011). We also found that lymphocytes and the SII were nonlinearly associated with high myopia (all P < .05). Higher levels of lymphocytes and SII related to high myopia. Thus, the measurement of inflammatory markers should be taken into consideration when assessing high myopia.