New Research Shows How Eating Fish Can Save Your Eyesight

Omega 3 Benefits

We’ve known for years that eating fish is good for the heart, helping to keep cholesterol and triglyceride levels in check . . . and we’ve heard that fish is “brain food,” and may even offer protection against Alzheimer’s disease.

Recent studies have shown yet another benefit associated with eating fish: a lower incidence of age related macular degeneration. This is a condition where, a small area in the back of the eye, the macula, which helps the eye focus, becomes damaged, causing blurred vision. Over time, the person with macular degeneration loses the ability to read, and may eventually be unable to recognize faces.

Ground Breaking Research

A report issued by the University of Maryland Medical Center states that studies show that people who eat omega 3 rich fish have a lower incidence of macular degeneration. In a study of the eating habits of more than 2,500 older residents of Salisbury, Maryland, researchers found that those who had advanced macular degeneration were considerably less likely to have regularly eaten shellfish or dark meat cold-water fish like tuna or salmon.

The most recent study to indicate the effects of fish in forestalling the development of macular degeneration comes from the Harvard Women’s Wellness Study, a longitudinal study that followed 39,876 middle-aged women who filled out comprehensive food questionnaires at the beginning of the study in 1993.

When researchers followed up with the participants after an average of ten years, 235 of the women had been diagnosed with macular degeneration. Women who had reported eating one or more portions of fish per week were 42 percent less likely to have developed age-related macular degeneration than those who consumed smaller quantities. The study controlled for other factors associated with macular degeneration, such as smoking.

As with earlier studies, consuming canned tuna and dark-meat fish such as mackerel, fish, sardines, bluefish and swordfish appeared to be the factor offering the protection to the eyes. These are the fish with the highest levels of omega-3 fatty acids.

In an article published in the New York Times on March 22, 2011, the lead author of the Harvard study, Dr. William G. Christen, an associate professor at Brigham and William Hospital and Harvard Medical Center, is quoted as saying “We know that inflammatory processes are involved in A.M.D., and the omega-3 long-chain fatty acids do have an anti-inflammatory effect.”

Results of this study appear in the June issue of JAMA Archives of Ophthalmology.

Current Trials

The National Eye Institute is also conducting a study—the Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2, or AREDS2—that will evaluate the role omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients may play in preventing macular degeneration damage.

The number of cases of macular degeneration is expected to be approximately three million within the next ten years.

Sara Roberts writes for Just Eyewear, a discount eyeglasses and prescription sunglasses online retailer.