Macular Degeneration Archives - Page 20 of 24 - Natural Eye Care Blog: News & Research on Vision

Fight Macular Degeneration: Exercise, Weight Management & Stop Smoking

Weight Management to Fight Macular Degeneration

A study published in the Archives of Ophthalmology shows that people with a body mass index of less than 25 are less likely than their peers to develop macular degeneration. Daily exercise also helped keep the eye disease in check. Over the course of the four year study patients who participated in vigorous exercise at least three times per week reduced the chance that the disease would worsen by 25%.

Continue reading “Fight Macular Degeneration: Exercise, Weight Management & Stop Smoking”

5 Ways to Absorb the Most Nutrients From Food and Supplements

You take your nutritional supplements as directed by your health care provider or as directed on the bottle, but how do you know if you are absorbing all of those vital nutrients? You may order a beautiful salad made with organic greens, but are you getting all of those carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin that are essential to preventing macular degeneration and cataracts?

Here are some tips on how to ensure that you are getting the most out your food as well as those vitamins, minerals, and other therapeutic compounds intended to improve your health:

1. Reduce stress: Stress restricts the flow of blood in the body by tightening muscles, and restricting the free flow of fluids. Meditation, yoga, tai chi or even daily walks in nature can all help reduce stress significantly.

2. Eat slowly: We should be eating our food slowly and thoughtfully. Try never to eat on the run, and don’t eat while conversing, writing, doing work, etc. Make eating a special time for yourself.

3. Exercise regularly: Exercise helps the body rid itself of harmful toxins that build-up daily. Numerous studies have shown that even a brisk walk of 20 minutes per day can have a major impact in reducing development of disease such as heart disease, and has even been shown to reduce high eye pressures in cases of glaucoma.

4. Positive thinking: In Chinese medicine, excessive thoughts of anger, worry, resentment, grief and fear all have significant effects on the free flow of “energy” in the body.

5. Eat healthy food: Our bodies crave fresh food, particularly fruits, vegetables, and grains. These foods provide energy to the body in the form of vitamins, minerals, and natural enzymes. Excessive intake of “dead” food such as fast foods, or highly processed foods, requires our bodies to use its own enzymes and energy to digest food in an attempt to separate whatever limited nutrients may be available.

Update: Also see our new article on the relationship between digestive enzymes and vision health.

Smoking Increases Risk of Alzheimer’s, Cataracts, and Macular Degeneration

We recommend that anyone interested in enjoying healthy eyes quit smoking because it has been linked to eye diseases including cataracts and macular degeneration. Here’s another reason to quit smoking: cigarettes increase your chance of developing Alzheimer’s disease by over 150%.

Though researchers are not exactly certain of why smoking can lead to Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia, it may have something to do with the fact that smoking causes inflammation and oxidative stress, both of which are known markers for Alzheimer’s.

The study, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, followed over 21,000 Californians over three decades. Source: livescience.com

A non-smoking lifestyle marked by other healthy choices related to diet, exercise, and stress management are the key to eye health and overall health. Learn more about the Vision Wellness Protocol.

Learn more about how understanding and managing Alzheimer’s naturally.

Exercise Supports Eye Health – A New Perspective on Stretching

woman exercising — Image courtesy of healthysd.gov

At Natural Eye Care, we know that exercise is a vital part of keeping both the eyes and the entire body healthy. Exercise is a key part of our prevention protocol and essential to anyone who wants to preserve their sight and avoid developing such diseases as glaucoma, macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, or cataracts.

A story aired on NPR talks about how that old pre-exercise stretching routine you have been doing for years may not be effective when it comes to warding off injuries.

A study published in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research found that “competitive runners are less efficient after static stretching.”

According to a coach interviewed in the same story, consider an alternative to the “bend and hold” style of stretching – a repetitive set of 2 to 3 second stretches called “active isolated stretching.”

Twice As Many Americans Treated For Retinal Disease Over 10 Years

An analysis of Medicare records over a period stretching from 1997 to 2007 showed that within the decade the number of older Americans receiving treatments for retinal diseases doubled. The treatments were for retinal conditions like age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy.

This study specifically focused on the sort of treatment that patients received.
Source: Yahoo News

At Natural Eye Care, we advocate a natural approach to vision health. For information on how to prevent eye disease through a combination of diet, lifestyle, nutritional supplementation, and exercise, please visit our website.

Regeneration of Human Cells Could Reverse Macular Degeneration and Retinitis Pigmentosa

Shakespeare’s fictional witches made a potion with eye of newt, but now some very real researchers are looking to the regenerative powers of newt to save human sight.

Scientists at the University of California, San Diego have been awarded a National Institutes of Health grant to study regenerative potential of retinal cells with hopes of finding treatments for macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.

Inspired by goldfish and newts who have the ability to regenerate a lost limb or eye, researchers are hoping to make it possible for humans to do the same thing for retinal cells. The team at UCSD is specifically looking at Muller cells, which fish use to regenerate nerve cells after eye injuries and which are also present in the nervous system of humans. The human genome is close enough to those of others in the animal kingdom to find these cell commonalities. It is hoped that these Muller cells can be turned into photoreceptors in the eye. When photoreceptors die off, people lose visual function to diseases like macular degeneration and retinitis pigmentosa.

Source: https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/uoc–urn092810.php

Scientists at UC Irvine have created an early stage retina from human embryonic stem cells. It is the first three-dimensional tissue structure to be made from stem cells and bring us closer to the development of transplant-ready retinas to treat eye disorders such as retinitis pigmentosa and macular degeneration that affect millions. Researchers managed to employ a technique that allowed them to create the multiple cell types necessary for the retina.

Source: Journal of Neuroscience Methods, 4-24-10.

Study of Fish Oil Quality and Content

fish oil capsules — Image courtesy of nccam.nih.gov

Independent testing by a White Plains, NY firm, ConsumerLab.com, has found that 7 of 24 fish oil supplements tested exhibited quality problems. Some products exhibited multiple issues.

Three products contained less of the omega 3 fatty acids EPA and/or DHA than claimed,
Three product were spoiled (including a children’s supplement)
One enteric-coated product released its ingredients too early
One supplement for pets exceeded the contamination limit for PCBs.

We recommend fish oil supplements highly because their Omega-3 fatty acids help improve circulation, integrity of blood vessels, proper brain functioning, flexibility and permeability of cell membranes, and helps protect the retina’s photoreceptor cells. They help to prevent and treat such conditions as glaucoma and macular degeneration.

You can access detailed test results at ConsumerLab.com

New Causes of Macular Degeneration: Genetic Discovery

genes — Image courtesy of: microbialgenomics.energy.gov

Researchers at the University of Manchester are making strides as they begin to understand another cause of macular degeneration.

Five years ago, scientists discovered that people who developed macular degeneration had a variant form of the gene CFH, a protein involved in the regulation of the immune system. In this new study it was found that people with this variant gene are more susceptible to inflammation within the eye that could eventually lead to the damage of cells and the development of macular degeneration.

Understanding the problem on the molecular level will hopefully lead to new therapies, according to those on the research team.

Source: https://media-newswire.com

Other scientists have identified a another variant possessed by 20 percent of the population that can actually protect people against AMD.

Source: https://www.technologyreview.com/

Update: alu RNA

“Geographic atrophy,” which causes cell death in the retina of the eye, is blamed as a major cause of what is often described as untreatable blindness and is associated with dry macular degeneration.

Researchers publishing in the journal Nature find a DNA level cause for macular degeneration: non-coding “junk DNA” that was previously thought to have no function. The scientists also found that another genetic component, RNA in a toxic form called Alu RNA, is also involved in retinal cell death.

These two discoveries could open new doors for therapies for macular degeneration patients. Source: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com

Update: Hepatic Lipase Gene Connection

In an analysis of the genes of more than 1,000 patients with AMD, an international team of scientists discovered a strong association between the vision problem and the presence of a new gene.

The new gene connection is with hepatic lipase gene LIPC, a critical enzyme in the metabolism of high-density lipoprotein (HDL). The study also noted strong associations between advanced AMD and other single nucleotide polymorphisms in the same lipid pathway, but the other finding showed a much stronger, genome-wide significance.

Abstract Title: Genome-Wide Association Study of Advanced Age-Related Macular Degeneration Identifies a New Susceptibility Locus in the Lipid Metabolism Pathway, Hepatic Lipase (LIPC)

Update: Efemp1 Gene

Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine have created the first animal model of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) caused by a mutation known to produce disease in people.

AMD is the most common cause of vision loss in elderly people, affecting more than 10 million people in the U.S. and about 50 million world-wide. Because AMD develops late in life (patients typically show symptoms of AMD after age 60), it is a difficult condition to investigate.

Although some forms of AMD are inherited, one type is thought to be caused by a mutation in the Efemp1 gene. Researchers introduced the disease-causing mutation into the Efemp1 gene of mice. These Efemp1-mutant mice develop the same basal deposits as people with AMD.

It is believed that these mice will provide a means to study how basal deposits form and what they are made of. The mice can also be used to test potential treatments to prevent basal deposit formation.

“To better develop treatments for preventing the progression of AMD, we need to understand the real biochemical details of how AMD occurs,” says lead author Eric A. Pierce, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Ophthalmology at Penn’s K.M Kirby Center for Molecular Ophthalmology. “To do that, we need a model, and now we have one.”

SOURCE: Model To Study Age-related Macular Degeneration Could Pave Way For Better Treatment, Pierce et al, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine (2007, October 10).

Lutein and Zeaxanthin Reduce Macular Degeneration Risk

The carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin are selectively absorbed by the macula of the eye in order to protect one from developing diseases like macular degeneration. A new study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association seeks to measure lutein and zeaxanthin consumption by age, sex, and ethnicity.

Among all age groups, both sexes, and all ethnicities, intakes of lutein were greater than of zeaxanthin. Zeaxanthin to lutein ratios in Mexican Americans was considerably greater than other ethnicities (other Hispanics, non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic black, other races). Lower zeaxanthin to lutein ratios were measured in groups at risk for age-related macular degeneration (e.g., older participants, women). The authors of this study state that their findings “suggest that the relative intake of lutein and zeaxanthin may be important to age-related macular degeneration risk.”

Source: LefDailyNews

Green vegetables such as kale, spinach, turnip greens, collard greens, romaine lettuce, broccoli, zucchini, garden peas and brussel sprouts are among the best sources of lutein and zeaxanthin. For more on food sources of nutrients, visit our website.

Learn more about preventing and treating macular degeneration.

Blueberries Help Prevent Diabetes and Macular Degeneration

New research published in the Journal of Nutrition shows that the bioactive ingredients in blueberries may help people fend off diabetes.

A study of people who were at risk for diabetes (obese and insulin-resistant but not yet diagnosed with diabetes) showed that consuming smoothies rich in blueberry bioactives twice per day for 6 weeks showed a 22% change in insulin sensitivity. This was the first study of its kind to indicate that the nutrients in blueberries can help regulate insulin levels in at-risk adults. It is believed that the flavonoids in blueberries – in particular anthocyanins and flavanols – are responsible for this positive effect.

Source: Nutraingredients

Blueberries are also great for the eyes as they are rich in antioxidants. Studies have linked blueberries and other antioxidants to the prevention of macular degeneration.