Dietary Antioxidants Reduce AMD Risk

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands--Higher dietary intake of antioxidants by older adults appears to reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to an assessment of the Rotterdam Cohort by researchers from Erasmus Medical Centre here. In their review, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) (294:3101-3107, 2005), researchers compared baseline dietary intake of antioxidants (taken in 1990-1993 through a food frequency questionnaire) to incidence of AMD through 2004. Out of 5,836 persons at risk of AMD at baseline, 4,170 participated in follow up; incident AMD occurred in 560 participants. Dietary intake of both vitamin E and zinc was inversely associated with incident AMD, while an above-median intake of vitamin E, zinc, vitamin C and beta-carotene reduced the risk of incident AMD by 35 percent. Exclusion of dietary supplement users did not affect the results.

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