Get your antioxidants from the grocer Globe and Mail, Canada - Nov 12, 2008 So far, antioxidant supplements appear to benefit only people with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), an eye disease that attacks the central part of ...
Count on antioxidants - not blue-blocking sunglasses - to reduce ... The Plain Dealer - cleveland.com, OH - Nov 9, 2008 Following the AREDS study, a number of brand-name supplements are on the market to cater to the AREDS recommendations, which are repeated in the dietary...
[PDF]He Won?t Be the Only One Smiling This Winter... C Vitamin - sangsters.com ... Vitamin C, probably the most well-known of all supplements, is known to ... Ontario
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Slowing Age-Related Macular Degeneration with Vitamins
One of the scary things about age-related macular degeneration—the leading cause of vision loss in older people—is that there is often little that can be done to slow down the disease.
But a combination of dietary supplements, which includes high levels of antioxidants and zinc, may help preserve the sight of people with age-related macular degeneration (AMD). And while studies have not yet proven that this supplement combination prevents AMD, some ophthalmologists recommend it to people who are at risk for this eye condition, such as those with a parent or sibling and those with fair skin and blue eyes.
AMD is a disorder of the macular, the central part of the retina, that makes vision less sharp and affects the ability to see straight ahead. There are two forms of the disease, dry and wet. The dry form is more common than the wet form and involves a more gradual loss of vision. In the early stage of the dry form of disease, someone will have several yellow deposits, called "drusen." on the macula. Intermediate AMD is marked by medium-sized drusen or one or more large drusen. And advanced AMD involves the breakdown of cells and tissue in the central retina. The "wet" form of AMD occurs when new blood vessels form behind the retina and start to grow toward the macula and leak or bleed into the eye.
Below, Lylas Mogk, MD, an ophthalmologist at the Visual Rehabilitation and Research Center in the Henry Ford Health System in Detroit and a spokesperson for the American Academy of Ophthalmology, discusses how dietary supplements may help improve eye health.
Do dietary supplements slow the progression of AMD?
We know from a very good National Eye Institute (NEI)-sponsored study, called the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS), that a certain combination of nutritional supplements retards the progress of macular degeneration. In the 10-year study, the supplements slowed the progress of the disease by about 25 percent in people with intermediate AMD or AMD in one eye but not the other eye. The study did not show whether or not the supplements made a difference to people who don’t have macular degeneration or who have early AMD. So you can’t say, "You should definitely take these if you are at risk for macular degeneration." However, in my judgment, it only makes sense that antioxidant supplements, in moderate amounts, are likely to make a difference in terms of prevention. But I always explain to people that that is not proven, so that’s their choice.
What supplements are recommended?
The recommended dietary supplement contains five ingredients. Four of them are functional and one of them is there as an add-on. The four are vitamin C, 500 mg; vitamin E, 400 mg; beta-carotene, 25,000 international units; and zinc, 80 mg. Two milligrams of copper is also in there, because zinc can cause a copper deficiency. For those who do not have AMD but are at risk, I would recommend only half of that amount of zine, and for those who are smokers, less or no beta-carotene.
How does this combination of dietary supplements keep the eye healthy?
The leading theory about macular degeneration is that free radicals are damaging the macula, which is the central part of the retina. Free radicals are little molecules that we produce normally just by breathing oxygen. We think of them as electrically charged, and they have to have a partner right away to be neutralized. The way they get neutralized is by antioxidants, and the vitamins serve as antioxidants.
With macular degeneration, either we have too many free radicals or we don’t have enough antioxidants. Beyond the amount that we produce just by breathing oxygen, free radicals are produced by air pollution, herbicides, pesticides, smoke and sunlight. In the last 50 years, we have been pumping many of those things into our air, water, soil and food, and the ozone layer is thinner, so we’re all getting hit with more sunlight. So we have a bigger load of free radicals.
On the antioxidant side, we have to get antioxidants from food. We don’t make our own. But over the same 50 years, we’ve changed how we grow food. We grow food in big industrial farms in demineralized soil, we don’t rotate crops, and we spray them with herbicides and pesticides. So the thought is that there is less actual antioxidant power in the food, so we need supplements to counteract the extra load of free radicals.
Are these doses of antioxidants unsafe for some people?
The only safety consideration has been beta-carotene in smokers because it increases lung cancer risk. Of course, not smoking is a cardinal rule of macular degeneration because it increases risk. So if you have macular degeneration, or are at high risk for it, and you’re smoking, you’re really inviting it.
Do you recommend a particular dietary formulation to people?
I tell them that any combination of those supplements works. People can buy each supplement individually, or they can buy them in a prepared formulation, or they can take them as a part of a general multiple vitamin. Ocuvite PreserVision is the formulation made by Bausch & Lomb, the company that collaborated in the AREDS study.
Can lutein reduce risk of AMD?
I often suggest that people add the carotenoid lutein and the antioxidant selenium, though there is no proof that they decrease risk. There was a good study out of Harvard in 1994 indicating that people who ate five servings or more of green, leafy vegetables that were rich in carotenoids had 42 percent less macular degeneration. So there is reason to believe that lutein might be a good contributor to this antioxidant formula. The amount of lutein recommended runs from 6 mg to 20 mg. Six milligrams is the amount that would be in, for instance, a serving of dark green, leafy vegetables.
[The NEI is currently studying lutein and zeaxanthin, and a randomized, controlled study published in April 2004 in Optometry showed that lutein alone, or in combination with other antioxidants, improved visual function in people with AMD.]
What other dietary components can reduce risk?
The other thing I recommend is eating extra omega-3 fatty acids, or taking omega-3 supplements. The richest source of omega-3 fatty acids is flaxseed oil. It’s also in fish oil, so, if people prefer, they can take cod liver oil. This recommendation is based on another Harvard study that showed that people who consumed more omega-3 fatty acids had less macular degeneration. People who consumed a lot of omega-6 fatty acids, however, regardless of how much omega-3 they ingested, still had a lot of macular degeneration. The reason is that in our bodies, omega-6s compete with omega-3s for the same receptors. Omega-6s are in vegetable oils that are used in all processed and packaged foods. So I tell people to take extra omega-3 fatty acids and to eat as few packaged and processed foods as they can.
Why are dietary supplements a good option for people with AMD?
There has been very little that has really been proven to make a difference with AMD, but dietary supplements are in that group that does make a difference. In the face of a condition that is stealing your central vision, those are pretty awesome stakes. So it makes sense to do it.
It also is psychologically beneficial to do something about AMD. If you’re told, "Well, sorry, we don’t exactly know what causes this condition and we can’t really stop it from progressing." that’s a pretty big weight to carry. If you can say, "There are some things you can do that may reduce your risk and here they are." at least you can be a little bit proactive about it.
