Vitamin C and Cataracts

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Bruce Thompson

* Health and Healing *

Thursday, April 18, 2002 8:36 AM

Fw: Vitamin C and Cataracts

 

 

 

 

Vitamin C Protects Against Cataracts

 

But Smoking Decreases Body's Use of Antioxidants

By Jeanie Davis

 

Feb. 22, 2002 -- Break out the orange juice, the berries, the broccoli,

bell peppers, and cabbage. Here's more evidence that Vitamin C -- from food

and supplements -- protects your eyes from cataracts.

 

Researchers from Boston's Tufts University studied data on 492 women aged

53 to 73, to see how nutrition affected their risk of getting cataracts.

They found a significant link between age and vitamin C intake for risk of

cortical cataracts, a very common form.

 

For women younger than 60, a vitamin C intake greater than 362 mg/day

reduced risk of cataracts by 57% compared with those who had an intake less

than 140 mg/day. Those who took vitamin C supplements for more than 10

years had 60% lower odds of cataracts than those who took no supplements.

'This is interesting because recommended dietary allowances are considered

to be significantly greater than the vitamin C intakes required to prevent

vitamin C deficiency-related disease,' writes lead author Allen Taylor, a

researcher with the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on

Aging at Tufts. His study appears in the most recent issue of the American

Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

 

Researchers also looked at factors related to having another type of

cataract -- called posterior subcapsular (PSC) opacities -- which involve

the outermost layers of the lens of the eye. They found that women who

never smoked and who had high dietary intake of carotenoids had fewer PSC

cataracts. Smoking has been shown to decrease the body's stores of

antioxidants, writes Taylor.

 

They saw no connection between intake of antioxidants called lutein and

zeaxanthin with risk of PSC cataracts -- although some other studies have

found a link. That issue needs further investigation, says Taylor.

Not all studies have shown that vitamin C has this protective role, he

writes. However, the benefit of long-term use of supplements is consistent

with what's known about cataract formation. Damage to the eye's cortex --

causing opacity and cataracts -- occurs over an extended period of time,

and is caused by long-term build-up of proteins, he says.

 

'These data add more weight to the accumulating evidence that antioxidant

nutrients can be [used] to alter the rates of development of these major

(but less studied) forms of age-related opacities,' Taylor writes. It also

provides indirect evidence that smoking negates all the benefits of

antioxidants by preventing the body from effectively using them.

 

For more information:

Tips for Getting Vitamin C </content/article/1668.50597>

 

© 2002 WebMD Inc. All rights reserved.

 

 

 

 

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