In a new study from University at Buffalo, researchers found people who eat a diet high in red and processed meat, fried food, and high-fat dairy maybe three times more likely to develop an eye condition that damages the retina and affects central vision.
The irreversible condition, called late-stage age-related macular degeneration (AMD), affects a person’s central vision, taking away their ability to perform common daily activities, like driving.
Treatment for late, neovascular AMD is invasive and expensive, and there is no treatment for geographic atrophy, the other form of late AMD that also causes vision loss.
That’s why the finding that diet plays a role in AMD is so intriguing.
In the study, the team examined the occurrence of early and late AMD over approximately 18 years of follow-up among participants of the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) Study.
They used data on 66 different foods that participants self-reported consuming between 1987 and 1995 and identified two diet patterns in this cohort—Western and what researchers commonly refer to as “prudent” (healthy)—that best explained the greatest variation between diets.
They found that people who had no AMD or early AMD at the start of our study and reported frequently consuming unhealthy foods were more likely to develop vison-threatening, late-stage disease approximately 18 years later.
Early AMD is asymptomatic, meaning that people often don’t know that they have it. To catch it, a physician would have to review a photo of the person’s retina, looking for pigmentary changes and development of drusen, or yellow deposits made up of lipids.
With early AMD, there could be either atrophy or a buildup of new blood vessels in the part of the eye known as the macula.
If you care about eye health, please read studies about a new way to prevent diabetic eye disease and findings of could supplements improve your eye health and vision?
For more information about eye disease prevention and treatment, please see recent studies about how the eyes could be windows to the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and results showing that a new eye drops may effectively treat dry eye disease.
The study is published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology. One author of the study is Shruti Dighe.
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