A National Eye Institute researcher John Paul SanGiovanni, ScD, and colleagues analyzed dietary data from 4,513 60- to 80-year-old participants in the Age-Related Eye Disease Study. Those who ate fish more than twice a week were half as likely to get macular degeneration as those who ate no fish at all. More than one weekly portion of broiled/baked fish or tuna lowered the risk by a third.
"The risk for [age-related macular degeneration] was significantly decreased for the highest versus the lowest quintiles of total [omega-3 fatty acids] intake," SanGiovanni and colleagues write in their abstract.
In the second study, Komal A. Trivedi, MD, of Harvard's Schepens Eye Research Institute, and colleagues asked whether fish oil protects from dry eye syndrome. Dry eye syndrome is when a person's eyes don't make enough tears. This can lead to scarring of the cornea and vision loss.
Trivedi's team analyzed data from 32,470 female health professionals in the huge Women's Health Study.
Natural Eye Care
They found that women whose diets had the most omega-3 fatty acids -- as measured by how much fish they ate -- were least likely to have dry eye syndrome. Those whose diets had the most fish oil were less likely to have dry eye syndrome than those whose diets had the least fish oil.
Editor's Note: Due to problems with high levels of mercury in most fish (except fish such as wild pacific salmon), we recommend getting your fish oil (omega-3 fatty acids) by taking high quality supplements.
For an excellent fish oil, I recommend: This
Fish Oil May Slow Vision Loss Due to Retinitis Pigmentosa
A fatty acid found in fish oil (docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA), may slow the rate of vision loss in people with an eye disease known as retinitis pigmentosa (RP), reports the American Journal of Ophthalmology (2004;137:704 18).
DHA, which is found in high amounts in the rods and cones of the eye, is necessary for proper vision development. Fish oil is a rich dietary source of DHA. The body can make smaller amounts of DHA from another fatty acid called alpha-linolenic acid, which is found in vegetable sources like flaxseed oil, soybean oil, and canola oil.
RP is a group of diseases that affect the back of the inner part of the eye, called the retina. The retina contains cells called rods and cones that receive and process visual images. Rods enable vision in lower light, while cones pick up colors and enable sharp vision. As these cells in the retina are damaged by RP, night blindness, tunnel vision, and eventually total blindness may occur. There are several forms of RP; most are the result of gene mutations. Diet, stress, and individual metabolism may influence the severity of the disease.
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