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Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD) is an eye disease that is basically caused by age. Picture this. a A blind spot in the center of your vision that keeps you from seeing entire images and eats away at your sight from the middle of your view outwards out. It can happen to one eye or it can happen to both. Even though sight loss is not complete, it is impressive amount for an someone to be thought of as legally blind and for quality of life to be entirely affected.
That is what happens for the 10 million Americans who suffer from AMD. AMD is a life changing eye illness and the chief cause of eyesight loss in people 65 years or older in the United States. Everyone age 65 or older are at risk for losing your vision from AMD.
 

Wet and Dry AMD

Dry AMD, the most common form of this disease, is caused by slow deterioration of the macular cells. Dry AMD isn’t curable, but its progression has been found to slow in response to nutritional supplements and a diet rich in specific nutrients.

Wet AMD involves the growth of new blood vessels (angiogenesis) in and around the macula. These new vessels tend to be leaky, causing damage and scarring that destroys light-sensitive macular cells. Wet AMD is rarer than the dry form, but progresses much more quickly. New therapies for wet AMD involve the injection of anti-angiogenic drugs like Avastin and Lucentis into the eye with a tiny, painless needle. Laser surgeries and photodynamic therapies (where a dye is used to target new blood vessels that are then “zapped” with light) can also be used to help preserve vision.   
 

Symptoms of AMD

Those affected by ARMD will notice a spot in their vision that is clearly indistinguishable. For instance, when looking directly at an image of a person, legs and head will be clearly visible, but the body itself, the part right in the center of vision, will appear to be covered with an area that appears either empty or dark. Besides blurred vision, straight lines may seem wavy and a person may not be able to recognize images that should be familiar.
 

What causes AMD

Free radicals cause much of the cell damage that occurs inside the retina therefore cigarette smoking and hypertension increase the risks of developing ARMD. Those who do not eat a nutritionally-balanced diet may also be at risk as they are not providing the body with the antioxidant protection it needs to inhibit the damage caused by free radicals.
 

Nutrition And AMD

There is exciting evidence in favor of nutritional prevention of AMD comes from the 2001 AREDS (Age-Related Eye Disease Study). In this seven-year study, about 3,600 patients with varying levels of AMD took high-dose vitamins C (500 mg) and E (400 IU), along with beta-carotene (25,000 IU) zinc (80 mg as zinc oxide), and copper (2 mg needed to balance out the zinc in the formulation) or a placebo. After six years, the group that took the nutrients had a 25 percent reduced risk of advanced AMD; those who did develop advanced AMD over the course of the study had lower risk of further vision loss.