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Nutrition's
potential to save sight
By
Rosalie Marion Bliss
July 1, 2010
While
20/20 vision is a symbol of visual acuity,
between now and the year 2020, more and more
people will experience some extent of vision
loss due to age-related macular degeneration
(AMD) and other sight-robbing diseases.
Now,
Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-funded
scientists at the Laboratory for Nutrition
and Vision Research are finding that healthy
eating can reduce not only health care
costs, but also the decline of quality of
life due to these diseases.
The
laboratory, directed by
Allen Taylor, is part of the
Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research
Center on Aging at
Tufts University in Boston, Mass.
One
study indicated that regularly consuming a
combination of protective nutrients and a
low-glycemic-index, or "slow carb," diet
provided an AMD protective effect. A food's
glycemic index is an indicator of how fast
the carbohydrate it contains will spike
blood sugar levels. The macula is a
3-millimeter-wide yellow spot near the
center of the retina responsible for the
central field of vision.
For
the study, the researchers analyzed dietary
intake and other data from more than 4,000
men and women, aged 55 to 80, who had
participated in the long-term
Age-Related Eye Disease Study, or AREDS.
Led by
Chung-Jung Chiu, the researchers ranked
intake of each of several nutrients consumed
during the AREDS study, then calculated a
compound score to gauge their combined
dietary effect on the risk of AMD. The
scoring system allowed them to evaluate
associations between individual—and
combined—dietary nutrients.
The
nutrients that were found to be most
protective in combination with the low-glycemic-index
diet were vitamins C and E, zinc, lutein,
zeaxanthin, and the omega-3 fatty acids
known as DHA and EPA. The 2009 study was
published in
Ophthalmology.
Read more about this and other research
related to improving health through
nutrition in the
July 2010 issue of
Agricultural Research magazine.
ARS is
the principal intramural scientific research
agency of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
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