Posted on 12/31/2022 9:52:06 AM PST by ConservativeMind
Dietary nitrate intake is associated with a lower risk for progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), according to a study.
Geoffrey K. Broadhead, M.D., Ph.D., from the National Eye Institute at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues examined the association between dietary nitrate intake and AMD progression using data from the prospective Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) and AREDS2 randomized clinical trial cohorts and extended follow-up studies. Data were included for 7,788 participants in the combined AREDS/AREDS2 cohort, with 13,511 eligible eyes.
The researchers found that in the combined AREDS/AREDS2 cohort, dietary nitrate intake was associated with a reduced risk for progression to late AMD (hazard ratio, 0.77 for quartile 4 versus 1 of intake); the risks for geographic atrophy (GA) and neovascular AMD (nAMD) were also reduced (hazard ratios, 0.71 and 0.85, respectively). Increased nitrate intake (quartile 4 versus 1) was associated with a reduced risk for late AMD and GA (hazard ratios, 0.77 and 0.80, respectively), but not with nAMD in AREDS; no association between nitrate intake and late AMD or nAMD was seen in AREDS2. An association was noted between Mediterranean dietary patterns and dietary nitrate intake.
"These results are from post hoc analyses and are therefore hypothesis-generating in nature," the authors write. "Much of the outcome associated with nitrate intake can be attributed to plant-based dietary patterns in general, such as a Mediterranean diet."
(Excerpt) Read more at medicalxpress.com ...
Some veggies have more nitrates than bacon.
So hot dogs are good for you? I’m comfortable with that.
The article makes no distinction between wet and dry macular degeneration. My mother has the wet, which is less common but more severe. fewer treatments, too.
Been taking the AREDS2 vitamins for two years now. Macular degeneration was still the dry form, not severe and actually improved a little and has not progressed. Totally worth it.
“Dietary nitrate intake is associated with a lower risk for progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD)”
Maybe I’m missing it, but it does not say whether HIGH nitrate intake is good or LOW nitrate intake is good. It uses the vague language above throughout the excerpt.
As Grace Slick said in song in the 60s, Those preservatives might be preserving you!
“Some veggies have more nitrates than bacon.”
That’s okay. I’ll just eat more bacon.
I don’t know how I missed that.
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