About the Authors

Esther M. Hoffmann

ehoffman@uni-mainz.de

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Mainz, Germany

Julia Lamparter

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Mainz, Germany

Alireza Mirshahi

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Mainz, Germany

Heike Elflein

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Mainz, Germany

René Hoehn

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Mainz, Germany

Christian Wolfram

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Mainz, Germany

Katrin Lorenz

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Mainz, Germany

Max Adler

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Mainz, Germany

Philipp S. Wild

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Internal Medicine II, Mainz, Germany

Andreas Schulz

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Gutenberg Health Study, Study coordination/statistics, Department of Internal Medicine II, Mainz, Germany

Barbara Mathes

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Gutenberg Health Study, Study coordination/statistics, Department of Internal Medicine II, Mainz, Germany

Maria Blettner

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Biostatistics and Epidemiology, Mainz, Germany

Norbert Pfeiffer

Affiliation University Medical Centre, Department of Ophthalmology, Mainz, Germany

Competing Interests

Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany and PHILIPS Medical Systems provided an unrestricted grant for the Gutenberg Health Study. No employment, consultancy, patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: EMH JL HE MA AM KL NP. Performed the experiments: MA RH CW. Analyzed the data: EMH JL BM AS MB PSW. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: EMH JL MA BM AS MB. Wrote the paper: EMH JL. Critical revision of manuscript: AM RH, HE, AS NP PSW.