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Omega-3s have no effect on AMD progression, AREDS 2 says
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The second Age-Related Eye Disease Study has shown that omega-3 fatty acids do not alter the progression of age-related macular degeneration and that removing beta-carotene from the formulation concomitantly improved its safety and did nothing to reduce its protective effects, according to a speaker during a webinar.
“Omega-3s, at least in the ratios studied, showed no benefit for macular degeneration,” Adam Berger, MD, said during the webinar. “Now, that doesn’t mean that omega-3s are not beneficial for other functions in the eye or in the rest of the body; it also doesn’t mean that a different ratio of omega-3s would produce results showing some beneficial effect, but as far as the ratios that were studied, there was no benefit.”
In another of the study’s primary measures, the AREDS2 formulation replaced beta-carotene, which has been shown in separate literature to increase the risk of lung cancer in current or former smokers, with lutein and zeaxanthin, according to Berger.
At conclusion of the 5-year study, a 22% reduction in the risk of progression to macular degeneration was observed in groups supplemented with lutein and zeaxanthin compared with beta-carotene, Berger said.
“In order to improve the safety and the efficacy of the AREDS supplements, we should remove the beta-carotene because of the risk for lung cancer not just in current smokers, but former smokers, who made up more than half of our patients in the study,” he said.
Also, while zinc is an important component of the AREDS formulation, it was inconclusive how much is necessary to achieve a reduction in the risk of progression, Berger said. Lowering zinc levels had no effect on disease progression.
“There did not appear to be any differences in terms of adverse side effects between the low zinc and the high zinc groups and as of right now, officially, there is insufficient data to make any recommendations regarding zinc,” he said. “However, I feel that since it didn’t seem to matter whether you had high doses of zinc or low doses of zinc, it certainly would make sense to lower the dose of zinc to prevent some of the other potentially problematic effects that zinc can have in the body, such as prostate and breast cancer.”
The webinar was hosted by Macular Degeneration Education.