Link to this article:
Taking a combination of folic acid and B vitamins may help to prevent a common form of vision loss in older women, according to a new study.
Age-related macular degeneration is a degenerative disease of the macula, a small area at the centre of the retina. The overgrowth of blood vessels into the retina can lead to central vision loss, preventing sufferers from seeing fine details, recognizing faces, or reading and driving.
It is a leading cause of vision loss in older Americans, and more than a third of Canadians between the ages of 55 and 74 develop AMD, according to the AMD Canada website.
In Monday's issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine, William Christen, of Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, and his colleagues reported the results of their randomized double-blind clinical trial involving more than 5,000 women aged 40 and older.
"Other than avoiding cigarette smoking, this is the first suggestion from a randomized trial of a possible way to reduce early stage AMD," said Christen, who led the research.
The findings should also apply to men, he said.
In the study, participants who took a combination of vitamin B6, vitamin B12 and folic acid reduced their risk of macular degeneration by more than a third after seven years, compared with women who took placebos.
© CBC 2009
Read the original post at Biological Psychology NewsLink ...
Loading ...