Higher risk of AMD in women who are vitamin D deficient

The August online edition of JAMA Opthalmology published results of a study that point to a higher risk of AMD in women who are deficient in vitamin D and who have two genetic risk markers for the disease. University of Buffalo researchers evaluated data on 913 women between the ages of 54 and 74 who had taken part in the Carotenoids in Age-Related Eye Disease Study. 550 women had sufficient levels of vitamin D while 275 women were deficient in the vitamin. The vitamin D deficient women who had two genetic risk markers were 6.7 times more likely to develop macular degeneration. Researchers found that increasing the levels of vitamin D did not lower the odds of the disease developing. Researchers concluded that being deficient in vitamin D may be a contributing factor to the development of macular degeneration but increasing vitamin D to high levels does not translate into a lower risk.*