Age Related Macular Degeneration | Vitamin Information Center

The eyes have it for vitamin supplements

5 Sep, 2008 No Comments

Bausch & Lomb, the eye health company dedicated to perfecting vision and enhancing life, has unveiled a groundbreaking range of vitamin and mineral supplements developed to help preserve eye health.

PreserVision Soft Gels by Bausch & Lomb are high potency antioxidant supplements developed from the only formulation tested in a 10-year eye health study. Conducted by the US National Eye Institute, the study monitored health in over 4,000 50-80 year-old participants, and found that the supplements could be effective in preserving eye health in those susceptible to age-related macular degeneration (AMD).

AMD is a disease of the macular – the central part of the eye which allows a person to see fine detail, and gradually destroys the sharp, central vision which is needed to see objects clearly. The most prevalent cause of vision loss in the western world, AMD is thought to affect over three million people in the UK alone – more than five per cent of the population.

Recommended by leading ophthalmologists in the UK, PreserVision Soft Gels provide antioxidant vitamins and minerals at levels not normally achievable through diet alone.

Andrew Lotery, Professor of Ophthalmology at the University of Southampton, said: “Oral treatment of AMD through supplementation is a proven and cost effective method of reducing progression of the disease.

“However, not all vitamin supplements are the same. Low doses of minerals such as vitamins C and E, zinc and beta-carotene have a negligible effect when compared to the high dose AREDS formulation. Vitamin therapy should be seen as a high priority when assessing patients in the early stages of AMD.”

The two-a-day PreserVision Soft Gels are available in two easy-to-swallow formulations – Original and Lutein. PreserVision Original provides high levels of the antioxidants beta-carotene3, vitamins C and E and zinc.

PreserVision Lutein is an advanced formulation containing the same combination of vitamins C, E and zinc, but with lutein as a replacement for beta-carotene. Lutein, which occurs naturally in the retina, is believed to function both as an antioxidant and a filter of harmful blue light. PreserVision Lutein can be recommended to all users, including smokers.

The PreserVision Soft Gels range complements the established PreserVision Tablets supplement, which contains the same quantity of the antioxidants vitamins and minerals as the Original Soft Gels formulation, but in a four-a-day tablet form.

For further information about Bausch & Lomb’s PreserVision, log on to Preservision.co.uk.

PreserVision Original and Lutein Soft Gels and PreserVision tablets are available over the counter at most Boots stores, and pharmacies, priced at £14.95 (RRP) for 60 Soft Gels.

Plainfield doctor touts benefits from Vitamin D

17 Jun, 2008 No Comments

By Mel Huff Times Argus Staff

MONTPELIER – A lack of vitamin D, which is produced by skin when exposed to the sun’s rays, correlates with a wide variety of diseases including many cancers, according to Dr. John Matthew, the medical director of The Health Center in Plainfield.

While it’s not understood why more people with vitamin D deficiencies get these diseases than people with adequate levels, the correlation is so compelling that it makes sense to give the vitamin to everyone whose level is low, Matthew said. The Health Center screens all its patients for vitamin D deficiency.

Matthew, speaking to the Vermont Dietetic Association’s annual conference last week, noted the following relationships:

degenerative joint disease in knees progresses three times as fast when vitamin D levels are low;

ovarian cancer rates in Norway and Iceland are fives times greater than in equatorial regions;

multiple sclerosis rates rise the farther away from the equator people live;

Type I diabetes rates follow the same curve; (but Finnish infants who were given 2,000 units of vitamin D for a year had an 80 percent lower lifetime risk of developing Type I diabetes);

vitamin D deficiency is associated with higher rates of tuberculosis, influenza and other infections; and

low wintertime vitamin D levels correlate with increased coronary artery disease, asthma, greater insulin resistence, higher triglycerides and age-related macular degeneration.On the other hand, taking 800 units a day of vitamin D produces a 70 percent reduction in falls among people over 70 living in nursing homes. And increased exposure to UVB, the middle part of the ultraviolet spectrum that turns on the skin’s production of vitamin D, has been associated with reducing the rates of 18 different kinds of cancer. Matthew, who serves on the faculty of the University of Vermont College of Medicine and Dartmouth Medical School, presented the information to more than 100 people who attended the Vermont Dietetic Association’s annual conference on Thursday.

The same day, the Association of Clinical Oncology released the conclusions of a Canadian study that found that breast cancer in women who had a vitamin D deficiency when they were diagnosed was 94 percent more likely to spread to other organs, compared to that of women with adequate levels of vitamin D, and the cancer was 73 percent more likely to be fatal.

“These data indicate an association between vitamin D and breast cancer outcome, but we can’t say at this time if it’s causal,” Dr. Pamela Goodwin, the lead author of the breast cancer study, said at a press conference Thursday.

Matthew, too, cautioned that “correlation does not equal causality.” He explained that low vitamin D levels are associated with depression, but said, “It could be that people who are depressed don’t go out in the sun.”

“So why do people have deficiencies?” he asked.

Human beings evolved in equatorial Africa, where their skin received a lot of sunlight, but they migrated into the higher latitudes where sunlight passes through the atmosphere at an angle, screening out much of the ultraviolet light.

In Vermont, there is no UVB in the sunlight from November to March. “You could sunbathe all day from November to March. You’d be cold, but you’d make no D,” Matthew said. Consequently, vitamin D deficiency is prevalent.

For most people, getting vitamin D from natural sources is impractical – even in warm weather they aren’t out in the sun for 15 minutes every day with 40 percent of their skin exposed, and they would have to drink 20 to 40 glasses of milk a day to get the amount they need.

Despite the lack of randomized, double-blind trials like those used to test the safety and efficacy of drugs, Matthew sees using supplements to raise people’s vitamin D levels as an inexpensive and low-risk way of improving their health.

Advanced Liquid Vitamins For You & Your Family!

9 Feb, 2008 No Comments

Phytonutrients are thought to have a variety of beneficial and significant benefits to our health and exist in a kind of limbo between being vitamin and being mineral.They are found in supplements that are the extract of pigments where nutrients are concentrated, meaning that they draw the best from antioxidant foods, leaving the calories and sugar behind.
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Vitamin Information Center

The eyes have it for vitamin supplements

Plainfield doctor touts benefits from Vitamin D

Advanced Liquid Vitamins For You & Your Family!

One-A-Day Eye Vitamin For Age Related Macular Degeneration