Antioxidant Carotenoids Protect the Eyes Against Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

By Kyle J. Norton

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a medical condition which causes the slow and progressive vision loss in the central vision found in people over age 60. Over time, AMD may affect the reading as the blurred area increased in size.

In other words, AMD may cause significant visual disability.

Most cases of the early stage of AMD were diagnosed during routine eye health examinations.

At the early stage, age-related macular degeneration is asymptomatic. However, most patients experience symptoms of shadowy areas in your central vision or unusually fuzzy or distorted vision, particularly in seeing wavy or blurred, with some dark areas at the center.

If you have some of the aforementioned symptoms, please check with your doctor to rule out the possibility.

According to statistics, approximately 11 million people in the US have some forms of age-related macular degeneration. The risk of getting advanced age-related macular degeneration increases from 2% for those ages 50-59 to nearly 30% for those over the age of 75.

Besides aging, some researchers suggest that other factors such as smoking, family history, gender, race, sun exposure, diet, and obesity also increase the risk of AMD developing.

However, most people with some of the risk factors have never developed AMD.

Dr. Sara Velilla, the lead scientist in the investigation of the risk of smoking on AMD wrote, "Smoking is the most important modifiable risk factor for AMD development and progression".

And, "...smoking by itself promotes molecular and pathological changes that may establish an ideal macular microenvironment for the development of AMD: vascular inflammation and endothelial dysregulation [47–56], oxidative damage [57–80], toxic damage, and histopathological changes [81–87]".

The results strongly suggested, if you smoke, your risk of age-related macular degeneration is increased by many folds.

Carotenoids is a class of mainly yellow, orange, or red fat-soluble pigments, including lycopene and carotene, found abundantly in ripe tomato, pumpkins, carrots, corn, and daffodils.

With an aim to find the potential compound for the prevention and treatment of age-related macular degeneration, researchers evaluated lutein and zeaxanthin (L/Z) are the predominant carotenoids accumulated in the retina of the eye.

Where lutein and zeaxanthin (L/Z)  have been found to improve and enhance eye health in the general population, particularly in the elderly.

According to the chemical analysis, the effective levels of L/Z achieved through diet alone, with values of 5 mg and 10 mg per day have a strong implication among people at high risk of AMD or with early signs and symptoms of AMD.

In other words, dietary sources of carotenoids can prevent the onset of progression of age-related macular degeneration even with people at a higher risk of AMD.

In order to confirm the effect of lutein and zeaxanthin (L/Z) activity in the protection AMD, the University of Melbourne. conducted an experiment containing 254 who were identified with early age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

Intakes of L/Z and fatty acids were estimated from food frequency questionnaires. 

According to the results, researchers surprisingly found that

*  L/Z  have a strong implication in reducing the risk of AMD in a dose depending manner.

* Increasing L/Z intake were associated with progression of AMD. The too much of a good thing (L/Z) might be harmful.

After taking other factors into account, researchers wrote, " It is possible that in this study participants adopted a more healthy diet, having been aware of their AMD status at the beginning of the study. This healthy diet was then reflected in the dietary questionnaire completed at the end of study".

And, " However, this explanation may not adequately explain why those whose AMD had progressed, on the basis of fundus signs and not symptoms such as visual acuity decline, adopted a healthier lifestyle more aggressively than those without progression".

Based on the findings, daily intake of L/Z intake up to 10 mg per day was associated with decreasing the risk of AMD

Taken altogether, carotenoids processed abundantly L/Z may be considered a remedy for the prevention and treatment of age-related macular degeneration, pending to the confirmation of the larger sample size and multicenter human study.

Intake of carotenoids in the form of supplement should be taken with extreme care to prevent overdose acute liver toxicity.

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Author Biography
Kyle J. Norton (Scholar, Master of Nutrition, All right reserved)
Health article writer and researcher; Over 10.000 articles and research papers have been written and published online, including worldwide health, ezine articles, article base, health blogs, self-growth, best before it's news, the karate GB daily, etc.,.
Named TOP 50 MEDICAL ESSAYS FOR ARTISTS & AUTHORS TO READ by Disilgold.com Named 50 of the best health Tweeters Canada - Huffington Post
Nominated for shorty award over last 4 years
Some articles have been used as references in medical research, such as international journal Pharma and Bioscience, ISSN 0975-6299.

Sources
(1) Lutein and Zeaxanthin-Food Sources, Bioavailability and Dietary Variety in Age-Related Macular Degeneration Protection by Eisenhauer B1, Natoli S2, Liew G3, Flood VM. (PubMed)
(2) Dietary lutein, zeaxanthin, and fats and the progression of age-related macular degeneration by Robman L1, Vu H, Hodge A, Tikellis G, Dimitrov P, McCarty C, Guymer R. (PubMed)
(3) Smoking and Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Review and Update by Sara Velilla, 1 , 2 José Javier García-Medina, 3 , 4 , 5 Alfredo García-Layana, 2 , 6Rosa Dolz-Marco, 5 , 7 Sheila Pons-Vázquez, 5 M. Dolores Pinazo-Durán, 2 , 5 , 8Francisco Gómez-Ulla, 2 , 9 , 10 J. Fernando Arévalo, 11 , 12 Manuel Díaz-Llopis, 2 , 7 , 8 andRoberto Gallego-Pinazo. (PMC)