Abstract
Purpose :
Research suggests that increasing the macular pigment optical density (MPOD) through carotenoid supplementation can provide protection of the retina against the damaging effects of age-related macular degeneration as well as increase visual function as measured by visual acuity (VA) and contrast sensitivity (CS). The purpose of this pilot study was to determine the efficacy of a medical food, LumegaZ™, relative to the AREDS2 formula found in PreserVision™ for enhancing VA and CS.
Methods :
Fifteen healthy optometry students aged 21-31 years were recruited from the Illinois College of Optometry. Subjects took PreserVision™ (soft gel capsule) or LumegaZ™ (liquid) for 6 months. MPOD, VA, and CS (photopic, mesopic, mesopic/glare) were measured for the right eye using the MapcatSF and CSV-1000HGT, respectively. Data were collected from each subject over 3 visits spanning 6 months (baseline, 3 months, 6 months). A single operator collected the data. Repeated measures ANOVA was used to evaluate and identify any statistically significant changes over the course of the study.
Results :
Initial results show that CS at 12 cycles per degree demonstrated a marginally significant improvement with both PreserVision™ and LumegaZ™ (p<0.09). Although marginally significant, the changes trend in the right direction and agree with previous CS studies with glaucoma and diabetic patients showing the sensitivity of 12 cpd to changes in disease state or treatment. More importantly, the mesopic and mesopic/glare measures appear to be more sensitive than measures taken under the photopic condition, which is used in most studies. There also appears to be a mildly significant effect of LumegaZ™ on VA over the 6 months (p<0.09).
Conclusions :
The overall effect of carotenoid treatment on CS and VA, though not statistically significant in this small sample size of healthy normal subjects, is encouraging. Additionally, this is one of the first carotenoid studies to utilize mesopic and mesopic/glare CS testing conditions. Previous studies have all used photopic testing levels. While there was no overall statistical significance between the treatment paradigm and visual tests, this could be due to the low number of subjects and the fact that they were young and healthy. Increased subject numbers could improve the statistical power in future studies and provide more insights into the potential visual function benefits of carotenoid supplementation.
This abstract was presented at the 2019 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Vancouver, Canada, April 28 - May 2, 2019.