Ageing eyes? Oranges and leafy vegetables can help

By Lee Hui Chieh
The Straits Times

Patients suffering from an age-related eye disease may be able to enhance their vision by eating more brightly coloured fruit and vegetables, a study here has found.

The study by Alexandra Hospital homed in on 46 patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), in which the centre of the retina called the macula - which enables the eye to see details - deteriorates, resulting in blurred vision and even blindness.

It found that patients who had higher levels of pigment in the macula, from having eaten foods with natural pigments, could see better than those with lower pigment levels.

On a 16-line eye chart, patients with higher pigment levels saw 12 lines on average; those with lower pigment levels saw an average of only seven.

The main researcher of the study, Dr Kumari Neelam, 37, said: 'The significance of this finding is that, for people with macular degeneration, their vision will be better if they have more pigmentation.'

Two yellow pigments found in the macula, known as lutein and zeaxanthin, have the job of filtering out damaging rays of light. If they are in short supply, the macula of the eye becomes more vulnerable to damage from ageing or severe myopia.

Their levels can be raised only through eating foods containing such yellow pigments, such as green leafy vegetables, maize, kiwi, grapes, oranges, pumpkins, and wolfberries.

To do the study, which was completed this month, Dr Neelam, a registrar of Alexandra Hospital's opthalmology and visual sciences department, measured the level of pigment in patients' eyes, as well as in the eyes of 14 healthy people.

To get more conclusive results, DrNeelam hopes to start a bigger study next year on 800 to 1,000 people, both AMD patients and those with healthy eyes.

She hopes that the bigger sample size will yield the normal range of pigment levels in healthy eyes here, the average amount of both pigments people consume in their diet and how this translates into the pigment level in their eyes.

All this data will in turn help determine the amount of certain foods or nutritional supplements that patients with low pigment levels should take, Dr Neelam said.

It is not known how many people here have AMD, but a community study on 574 people aged 60 and above in 1997 found that 27 per cent of them suffered from it.

To raise awareness of AMD, hospitals, eye clinics and optical centres here have banded together to run public forums and eye screenings for age-related eye diseases, including AMD, this week.

For $6, individuals can have their eyes screened at participating centres until this Friday.