How To Avoid Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Avoiding Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Eye problems can strike at any age, but as we get older, it becomes a lot more likely. In particular, age-related macular degeneration is, as the name suggests, an age-bound disease.

Is there no escaping it, then?

The risk factors for age-related macular degeneration are as follows:

• Being over the age of 55 (can’t do much about this one)
• Being over the age of 65 (risk climbs sharply now)
• Having a genetic predisposition (can’t do much about this one)
• Having high cholesterol (this one we can tackle)
• Having cardiovascular disease (this one we can tackle)
• Smoking (so, just don’t)

Genes predispose; they don’t predetermine. Or to put it another way: genes load the gun, but lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Preventative interventions against age-related macular degeneration

Prevention is better than a cure in general, and this especially goes for things like age-related macular degeneration, because the most common form of it has no known cure.

So first, look after your heart (because your heart feeds your eyes).

See also: The Mediterranean Diet

Next, eat to feed your eyes specifically. There’s a lot of research to show that lutein helps avoid age-related diseases in the eyes and the rest of the brain, too:

See also: Brain Food? The Eyes Have It

Do supplements help?

They can! There was a multiple-part landmark study by the National Eye Institute, a formula was developed that reduced the 5-year risk of intermediate disease progressing to late disease by 25–30%. It also reduced the risk of vision loss by 19%.

You can read about both parts of the study here:

Age-Related Eye Disease Studies (AREDS/AREDS2): major findings

As you can see, an improvement was made between the initial study and the second one, by replacing beta-carotene with lutein and zeaxanthin.

The AREDS2 formula contains:

• 500 mg vitamin C
• 180 mg vitamin E
• 80 mg zinc
• 10 mg lutein
• 2 mg copper

You can learn more about these supplements, and where to get them, here on the NEI’s corner of the official NIH website:

AREDS 2 Supplements for Age-Related Macular Degeneration

Take care of yourself!