Preventing Macular Degeneration with Diet

More than a million Americans are blind. The four common causes are cataracts, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetes.

This is normal vision. This is with cataracts. This is with glaucoma. This is with macular degeneration. And this is with diabetic retinopathy. And if left untreated, they all can end up looking like this.

We know diabetes—the leading cause of new cases of blindness, and amputations, and kidney failure—can be prevented, managed, treated, and even cured with a plant-based diet. But what about the other three common causes of blindness?

Researchers recently looked at the connection between overall diet quality and age-related macular degeneration. But diet quality based on whose criteria? They based it on the Alternative Healthy Eating Index, developed by Harvard. You basically get scored 1 through 10, based on each food group. If you consume five servings of vegetables a day, for example, your vegetable score is a 10; four servings of fruits a day gets you a perfect fruit score. If you eat vegetarian, you get a perfect 10 in the meat department, then more whole foods, less trans fats, etc.

And based on these criteria, they concluded that advanced age-related macular degeneration was significantly related to overall diet quality.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring, watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by veganmontreal.

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Images thanks to Christine Erber via Wikimedia Commons and the National Eye Institute.