Improving or Preventing Age Related Vision Loss or Low Vision Studies Suggest Taking Lutein and AREDS Vitamin May Delay Vision Loss

Vitamins for Vision Loss

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Age related macular degeneration (ARMD) is the leading cause of untreated vision loss in aging Western societies. Besides age, smoking is also a risk factor for macular degeneration vision loss and low vision. There are two forms of macular degeneration, wet and dry. Medicines have been approved for wet macular degeneration but not many drugs have been directed at the more prevalent dry macular degeneration. Consumption of Lutein, a molecule found in green leafy vegetables and available in vitamins has been advocated as a way to slow down vision loss from macular degeneration.















The macula of the eye is located in the center of the retina. The macula is the area that provides the clearest vision in the eye. If you look directly at something, the light from that object forms an image on the macula of the retina. The retina is the light sensitive tissue at the back of the eye, sort of like the electronic pixels in a digital camera or the film in a regular camera. The retina converts light, into electrical impulses and sends these impulses to the brain.




"Age related macular degeneration (ARMD) is the leading cause of untreated vision loss in aging Western societies, accounting for 45% of all visual disability in the United States"... "After aging, smoking remains the most significant risk factor for macular degeneration". (see LAST Study). Dr. Stuart Richer O.D.,PH.D.,of the Veterans Affairs Eye Clinic, et al, has previously reported that men taking lutein or lutein and vitamins had improved vision. According to a report in The New York Times, "Dr. Richer said the patients receiving lutein were able to see the equivalent of one line more on standard eye tests at the end of the year."



In the study,

The Veterans Lutein Antioxidant Supplementation Trial(LAST) which appears in Volume 75,Number 4, April 2004 in the journal Optometry, 90 men with macular degeneration were given either 10mg of lutein, 10mg of lutein and antioxidant vitamins and minerals or a maltodextrin placebo. The lutein was the equivalent of three or four ounces of spinach.


In 2001 scientists at Johns Hopkins released the AREDS study that said that a combination of minerals and vitamins known as AREDS might help put the brakes on macular degeneration. Some went so far as to say If all the people at risk for macular degeneration took the vitamin supplements used in the earlier study more than 300,000 of them would avoid advanced macular degeneration and any associated vision loss during the next five years, the study found.