Introduction to Age-Related Macular Degeneration Blog

Doctors and scientists are learning new things about age-related macular degeneration on an almost daily basis. The field is simply moving too fast for patients and even doctors to keep up. You need someone on the inside to interpret the new information and present it to you clearly. Someone who can tell you what is important and what is not. My colleagues and I want to do this for you. We are not paid by any drug or instrument company and we promise to be fair and unbiased.

We have decided to concentrate on age-related macular degeneration for now for the following reasons:
1. We are experts in this disease and believe that The Center for Macular Degeneration at Iowa is one of the worldwide leaders in the research and treatment of AMD.
2. Treatments for AMD are changing more than for any other retina disease.
3. AMD is the most common retinal disease
4. Patients with AMD can do something to improve their chances of keeping vision.
5. Some patients, who probably do not have AMD, may be unnecessarily frightened by misinformation.
5. Patients need to be informed because there are new treatments for the wet or neovascular form of the disease which have variable results.
6. Although the vast majority of retinal specialists are very honest and ethical, a few are being paid to promote certain treatments.
7. Unscrupulous individuals are preying on desperate AMD patients by offering them expensive treatments that do not work. Not only are they fleecing the patients out of money, they are also delaying them from seeking treatments that may help their disease.

My colleagues and I at the CAMD plan to write a biweekly column on AMD. We will then be available to answer questions from patients or their doctors. The information in the column will be based on the published scientific literature and our experiences with treating many thousands of patients with AMD. We are not selling you any treatments and we hope that you join in the discussions. In the future, we do hope however, to be able to offer you books and pamphlets on this and other diseases at a nominal cost.

Let’s Start:

Anna is sixty-five and complains that she can’t see highway signs as well as she used to and needs more light to read. She has not noticed any distortion in her vision. Her vision is 20/20 in the right eye and 20/25 in the left eye. When we examine her retinae, this is what we see: (Figures).

Right Eye
















Left Eye
Anna has small round collections of yellow material beneath her retina in the macular area. These are called drusen, a German word for stones or pebbles and are a sign of macular degeneration of aging. The larger the drusen, the more likely the patient will progress to advanced AMD and visual loss. Anna has mostly large drusen in both eyes and the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) found that she has about a 28% chance of progressing to advanced AMD with visual loss over five years. In AREDS, this risk was lowered to 20% in patients who took Vitamin C 500mg, Vitamin E 400 International Units, Betacarotene 15 mg, zinc 80 mg, and copper 2mg every day. Anna should start taking these vitamin and mineral supplements.
Patients who smoke should not take betacarotene because it has caused an increased risk of lung cancer that has been confirmed in multiple studies. There has been some publicity that high doses of vitamin E may increase the risk of heart disease but 400 international units a day has been a safe dose in multiple studies. Zinc increases the risk of prostate enlargement but not of prostate cancer. These vitamins are available in drug stores and large general merchandise stores like WalMart and Target.

The next three topics will be:
Which vitamin and mineral supplements are the best.
The emerging stories of omega 3 poly-unsaturated fatty acids and lutein/zeaxanthin.
Lifestyle changes that may reduce the progression of AMD.