The impact of fatty acids on AMD

Sunday, March 17 2013 | 00 h 00 min | News

In France, the Nutritional AMD Treatment-2(NAT-2) study has shown that omega-3 fatty acids may help reduce the risk of developing neovascular AMD.

The researchers suggest that high doses of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) reduce the risk of developing AMD by 68%. The study, conducted at the Centre Hospitalier Intercommunal de Créteil (CHIC) on 300 patients who were monitored for three years, is the first to explore the potential of long-term oral supplementation with DHA to reduce the development of AMD. DHA is an omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid found in fatty fish.

The patients had early age-related macular degeneration lesions. Some of them received 840 mg/day of DHA, plus 270 mg/day of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), whereas others received a placebo. In the DHA group, the more omega-3 patients took, the lower their risk of developing AMD. However, several patients from the placebo group took large amounts of omega-3 in a natural or capsule form on their own initiative, which complicated the comparison of the results between the two groups.

Source: http://www.chicreteil.fr/actualites/actualites.php?actualite_id=110&page=1