Macular Degeneration Update: January 2007

IN THIS ISSUE: - PROPER DOSAGE VITAL TO OBTAINING BENEFIT OF EYE VITAMINS - DOES LASER TREATMENT HELP DRY AMD? - MORE ON AREDS 2

PROPER DOSAGE VITAL TO OBTAINING BENEFIT OF EYE VITAMINS

Failure to take your medications, what doctors refer to as “compliance problems,” remain a problem in the treatment of many medical conditions.

Studies that evaluate how frequently patients miss their medications are unsettling. For certain life-threatening conditions, such as insulin-dependent diabetes or seizure disorders, compliance is very high. But for conditions in which it is unlikely that the patient will feel different on any given day, such as having high cholesterol or glaucoma, compliance is much worse.

So it should come as no surprise that compliance with macular degeneration supplements might also be a problem.

We discovered that over 25% of our customers were under-treating their macular degeneration with VisiVite.

How did we discover this?

Our Sight For Life subscription service automatically sends patients 3 bottles of VisiVite and 1 bottle of Co-Defense Multivitamins with free shipping every three months. Ideally, customers should be nearly finished with their vitamins just as the next shipment is arriving.

But many customers contacted us, reporting that they were not finished with their current vitamin supply. When a customer states that he or she has half a bottle remaining, the math is easy. That person is missing 1 out of every 6 doses.

But some customers said that they had almost 2 bottles of VisiVite remaining by the time they received their next shipment. When this occurred, we discovered a disturbing truth.

MANY VISIVITE USERS ARE INCORRECTLY TAKING ONE CAPSULE PER DAY RATHER THAN ONE CAPSULE TWICE DAILY.

In other words, they are getting only half of the daily dose!

Although you might think that there would be SOME benefit to taking one capsule per day rather than one capsule twice daily, the scientific research says otherwise.

Many studies prior the National Eye Institute’s Age Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) which was published in 2001, looked at nutritional supplementation in preventing the progression of macular degeneration. Prior to AREDS, no study was able to show benefit. What made AREDS unique was that the DOSAGES of antioxidants and zinc were significantly higher than had been previously used. AREDS therefore showed that there is a CRITICAL MINIMUM AMOUNT of nutrients required to positively impact eye disease. There is NO DATA to support the fact that taking half the recommended regimen of VisiVite is effective.

So, to obtain benefit from VisiVite, you must take one capsule TWICE DAILY!

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DOES LASER TREATMENT HELP DRY AMD?

Because Macular Degeneration can have such severe visual consequences, patients are always eager to try the latest, greatest treatment. Unfortunately, under critical evaluation, scientific research often does not substantiate the claims.

As a case in point, the National Eye Institute recently completed the Complications of Age-Related Macular Degeneration Prevention Trial (CAPT), to determine whether application of low-intensity laser treatment of eyes with drusen in the macula can prevent later complications of age-related macular degeneration and thereby preserve visual function.

Complications resulting from age-related macular degeneration is a leading cause of severe vision loss among people aged 65 and over in both the United States and Western countries. Although Dry Macular Degeneration can cause severe vision loss, it more commonly causes mild or no vision loss. The risk is that Dry Macular Degeneration can progress to Wet Macular Degeneration. More than 90% of macular degeneration patients with severe vision loss have Wet (also known as Neovascular) Macular Degeneration. The word, “neovascular,” refers to the development of new, abnormal blood vessels in the back of the eye, below the retina, that leak blood, plasma and protein.

An early sign of Dry Macular Degeneration is the formation of drusen, yellow deposits beneath the retina. Eyes with drusen that are large are at increased risk for developing the vision threatening complications of Wet Macular Degeneration. Some investigators had previously reported that laser photocoagulation causes a reduction in large drusen. The National Eye Institute (NIH) chose to evaluate this claim.

Patients recruited for the NIH study had to have at least 10 large drusen per eye and were considered to be at high risk for the development of Wet Macular Degeneration.

After 5 years, both the group treated with low intensity laser as well as the group not treated with laser had a 13% incidence of developing Wet Macular Degeneration and a 7.5% incidence of developing a severe form of Dry Macular Degeneration known as Geographic Atrophy.

The results of the study were clear.

The National Eye Institute announced that low intensity laser treatment did not demonstrate a clinically significant benefit on vision in eyes of people with bilateral large drusen. --------------------------------------

MORE ON AREDS2

The National Eye Institute (NIH) is now recruiting patients for a five year study, known as the Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2). It will look specifically at lutein and zeaxanthin, plant-derived yellow pigments that aggregate in the macular portion of the retina. Also to be reviewed with be the omega-3 fatty acids DHA and EPA, which are derived from both fish and certain vegetable oils.

While the original AREDS formulation was shown to reduce the rate of progression of macular degeneration, the National Eye Institute is introducing this new study to determine if these new molecules will have an even stronger effect.

Research strongly suggests this will be true, since studies suggest that people who eat higher amounts of green leafy vegetables that contain lutein and zeaxanthin and those who eat two or more servings a week of fish have a lower risk of having macular degeneration than those that don’t eat those things at all.

The researchers will also be looking to reduce the amount of zinc because the nutritional experts at the NIH have stated that the body can’t absorb the full 80 mg per day, and 40 mg per day will also have fewer side effects.

The current study will also evaluate the elimination of beta-carotene for smokers, since this compound carries additional health risks for smokers.

Researchers will enroll 4,000 people with macular degeneration between ages 50 and 85. The study is expected to take more than 5 years to complete. For more information, visit WWW.AREDS-2.COM.