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Too Much Sun, Too Few Antioxidants Spell Eye Trouble

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Oct. 14 (HealthDay News) — If you’re planning to retire to Florida or Arizona for health reasons, be sure to pack your sunglasses.

That’s the message from a new study that found that older people with low levels of certain antioxidants present in many fruits and vegetables, and who are exposed to short-wavelength blue light from the sun, are more likely to develop certain types of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). But the damage can start decades before you turn 65.

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“We recommend that people use eye protection, including sunglasses and wide-brimmed hats, if going outside and especially in gleaming sunlight” and for the period of the middle period of the day, said Astrid E. Fletcher, lead author of the study published in the October issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.

“Our advice on nutrition,” she added, “is that people should ensure that they follow the five-a-day recommendations. In particular, they should see that their premium diet patch includes leafy green vegetables, citrus fruit, vegetable oils and nuts, as these are good sources of the antioxidant vitamins of relevance to the retina.”

Dr. Julie Belkin, some ophthalmologist with University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland, aforesaid, “Sunglasses are recommended anyway, and most people who have a normal, balanced diet will get adequate levels of those antioxidants. But in that place are vitamin ( buy vitamin a & d) supplements if you have other risk factors or other eye findings that rustic you at risk.”

While the authors of the new study found that the link between blue-light exposure and low antioxidant levels was stronger in middle age, compared to junior years, other experts said it’s unclear when the damage takes place.

“We don’t verily know how many years it takes” for AMD to develop. “For some people, it could be a few years in the sun is bad, and for others, a few decades is bad,” said Dr. Robert Cykiert, an associate professor of ophthalmology at New York University Langone Medical Center in New York City.

Previous studies had suggested that blue illumine may damage the retina and set eyes on the path to developing AMD, a leading end of vision loss in Americans aged 60 and older.

Studies have also shown that antioxidant enzymes such as vitamins C and E, the carotenoids (lutein and zeaxanthin), and zinc be possible to protect against blue light. But no any had really looked at how blue light and antioxidants might interact to affect the risk for AMD.

After studying nearly 4,500 older Europeans (average age 73.2 years), the study authors, from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, found no overall association between blue-light exposure and neovascular (early) AMD.

However, blue light exposure was associated with neovascular AMD in 25 percent of the people with the lowest antioxidant levels.

“This is the first time they’ve looked at this in so many patients, but it makes sense from a physiological standpoint,” said Dr. David M. Kleinman, an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the University of Rochester Eye Institute. “In joining to there being some things we can’t control, like genetic bias, really taking care of ourselves in a certain wont will really help reduce vision loss from AMD.”

That includes exercising and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol, added Kleinman, a retina specialist who studies macular degeneration.