Diet affects vision, cognitive function, speaker says

ATLANTA – A presenter here at the SECO meeting explained the links between diet, age-related macular degeneration and Alzheimer’s disease and offered advice on lowering risk.

“In Alzheimer’s we get an inflamed brain; with AMD we get an inflamed retina,” Stuart Richer, OD, PhD, FAAO, told attendees. “We have an inflammatory diet in the U.S.”

A diet high in carbohydrates shows an increased risk of mild AMD, he said.

“A vegan diet can be bad for the brain as well due to vitamin B12 deficiency,” he added.

Nutrients that have been shown to improve both visual and cognitive function include carotenoids, vitamin C, selenium, sulfur/lipoic acid, N3 fats/phospholipids, vitamin D, vitamin B, zinc, tumeric, lutein, zeaxanthin and astaxanthin, Richer said.

The use of acid inhibitors over a long period of time can block vitamins and minerals, he said.

“They’re drug muggers; they deplete basic nutrition in people as they get older, and most doctors don’t know this,” Richer said.

“High-dose statins in particular are being looked at for decreasing CoQ10,” he continued. “If I see a patient with high-dose statins having cognitive and visual problems, it can increase the risk of AMD.”

Richer said he considers Alzheimer’s disease to be related to a number of environmental factors.

“We need to educate people about this and keep the meds for the difficult cases,” he said. “We need to look at this as environmental medicine, preventive medicine and plain common sense to be sure we have what we need for neural protection.

“How does this affect us?” Richer asked. “We see patients every year and they’ll show up with constricted visual fields, thinner optic nerves, hyperacuity perimetry defects, useful field of vision deficit, thinner skin, thin corneas, retinal drusen and lipofuscin, and aberrant cortical lens fibrils.”

Richer cited a study presented at the ARVO meeting in 2008: the Alzheimer’s disease biomarker was found in the lens of a mouse model 10 months before beta 142 amyloid pathology was found in the brain.

Researchers are also developing a retinal test that can detect Alzheimer’s in the retina before symptoms develop.