Hundreds of thousand of people could benefit from vitamin supplements shown to help prevent macular degeneration, a condition that is the leading cause of blindness from age 65, a study said on May 15.
In 2001, researchers reported they had found a reduced risk of advanced age-related macular degeneration and vision loss for test subjects who had been given high-dose antioxidant supplements-vitamins C, E and beta carotene- as well as zinc or zinc oxide.
In latest report, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions in Baltimore tried to estimate how many people in the United State alone would benefit from increasing supplement use.
They concluded there are 8 million Americans at least 55 years old thought to be at high risk for the problem. If all the people at risk took the supplements used in the earlier study, more than 300,000 of them would avoid advanced macular degeneration and any associated vision loss during the next five years, the study said.
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