Column explains how eggs may decrease the risk of macular degeneration

The following article from AOA First Look, April 28, 2009 shows an interesting way of consuming more lutein and zeaxanthin, which are known to be beneficial to those with macular degeneration or to those at risk of the disease. Another way of obtaining the nutrients that promote macular health is through proper supplementation. Your doctor should be able to recommend products based on AREDS research and the studies that followed AREDS. This is something that a low vision doctor will recommend to all macular degeneration patients. I recommend supplements that contain all of the helpful nutrients. I believe that is preferable to making up your own combination of ingredients that you have heard may help.

In a syndicated column appearing in Canada's Niagara Falls Review (4/27), W. Gifford-Jones, MD, wrote that eggs "contain lutein and zeaxanthin, known as carotenoids, that help to decrease the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD)," a disease that "affects central vision and is the leading cause of blindness for people over 65 years of age." According to research done by Dr. John Landrum, of Florida International University, who "is a world authority on macular pigments," patients "with the highest intakes of lutein and zeaxanthin had 43 percent less chance of developing" AMD. In addition, a "study from the National Institute of Health...found that those with the lowest level of carotenoids had the highest risk of AMD." Recent data from the National Cancer Institute "show the overall decline of lutein intake.known This decrease in dietary lutein was particularly striking in those groups at risk of macular degeneration." Scientists "believe that lutein and zeaxanthin protect the macula by absorbing harmful blue light rays from the sun's rays," and may "act as antioxidants that neutralize free radicals, the end products of metabolism that are believed to cause aging."