Could A Low-Carb Diet Prevent Blindness In Elderly?

Filed under: Study — @ July 18, 2007

Dr. Allen Taylor found AMD speeds up rapidly on a high-carb diet

It’s not looking good for the highly-recommended, government-approved high-carb diet now that a new study has found it can lead to an increase in the risk of developing advanced age-related macular degeneration, or AMD.

Dr. Allen Taylor, Senior Scientist and Director in the Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research at the Jean Mayer USDA HNRCA at Tufts University in Boston, MA, and his fellow researchers observed nearly 4,100 nondiabetic senior citizens between the ages of 55-80 years old (average age for men was 79.3, for women was 77.9) in a nationwide study called the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) to determine the impact of their diet on AMD, a very serious eye condition that has become the #1 reason for blindness in people 50 and over.

What the researchers found was those study participants who consumed a higher-carb diet than the average for their age experience a 49 PERCENT INCREASE in the risk of developing advanced AMD. Dr. Taylor said the more carbs that were consumed, the greater the risk.

Incredibly, the results of this study found that 1 in 5 cases of advanced AMD would likely have been PREVENTED entirely by consuming a lower-carb diet.

Click here to learn more about this study and what impact it will have on the way AMD is treated in the elderly.