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Early doses of vitamins, carotenoids reduce cataract progression

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BASEL, Switzerland — Strong doses of both vitamins and carotenoids can significantly reduce cataract progression, two large population-based studies found.

According to Wolfgang Schalch, PhD, with Roche Vitamins here and L. Chylack with Harvard Medical School in Boston, outcomes from the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) and the Roche European American Cataract Trial (REACT) acknowledge cataract progression is accelerated when the crystalline lens has photooxidative damage. Antioxidants such as vitamins C and E and beta-carotene may slow disease progression.

Results from AREDS indicated a positive effect only for age-related macular degeneration, not for cataract, wheres REACT indicated a small, but statisically significant, deceleration of cataract progression.

AREDS supported “early complementation of a diversified diet with supplements containing vitamins C, E” and carotenoids, but did not implement an earlier and higher concentrated use of the supplements, like REACT, Dr. Schalch wrote in the March issue of Der Ophthalmologe.

One reason REACT may have benefitted those patients with cataracts is that subjects began receiving vitamin supplements earlier in that trial than in the AREDS trial.