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Antioxidants may help prevent retinal degeneration
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An antioxidant combination successfully prevented the progression of retinal degeneration in mice with a form of retinitis pigmentosa, according to a group of researchers.
Peter Campochiaro, MD, and colleagues at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine conducted the experimental study on the role of oxidative damage on cone cell death. In retinitis pigmentosa, rod cells die before cone cells, resulting in increased oxygen in the outer retina, which in turn kills the cone cells, according to the study. Antioxidants are believed to protect cells from oxidative damage.
The researchers used the rd1 mouse model. Mice were injected with either a mixture containing vitamin E, vitamin C, alpha-lipoic acid and other antioxidants or each component alone between postnatal day 18 and day 35.
They found that 40% of cones survived in mice treated with vitamin E or alpha-lipoic acid — roughly 2 times the survival rate among control mice or mice treated with other antioxidants, according to a press release.
“These experiments suggest that an optimized regimen of antioxidants may help to protect patients with retinitis pigmentosa,” Campochiaro said in the release.
The study is published in the July online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.