Age-Related Macular Degeneration - Diet, bionome, Vitamin D, CBD, Avastin, etc

Created March 2019

Observations while under contruction as of March 2019

  1. AMD greatly increased recently
    •     perhaps due to poor nutrition

  2. AMD greatly increased with smoking since the 1930's perhaps due to tobacco additives

  3. AMD is more likely if have some genes

    •     but genes are much less of a risk factor than nutrition or smoking

  4. Avastin ( a chemo drug) injections appear to nicely slowdown wet AMD progression

  5. CBD treats both wet and dry AMD

    •     sublingual CBD works, Big Pharma has also patented CBD eye drops
  6. Vitamin D treats and prevents both wet and dry AMD
    •     generally using oral Vitamin D

  7. Omega-3 treats wet AMD

    Suggestions to prevent AMD

Eat organic food (more nutrition), supplement with Vitamin D, Omega-3, do not smoke

Additional suggestions to treat AMD

Get Avastin injections, Add CBD

AMD is due to poor diet (CURE AMD Foundation)

Dr. Chris Knobbe believes that an ancestral diet would prevent AMD
But it is virtually impossible to get a nutritionally complete ancestral diet in 2019
Modern day "Ancestral" food lack Magnesium, Vitamin D, Zinc, Vitamin K, Omega-3, etc.

Cure AMD Foundation
Electronic copy of his book costs only 50 cents

What Are the Best ‘Eye Vitamins’ for Macular Degeneration? - none

  • " macular degeneration was an extraordinary medical rarity, from 1851 until about 1930."

  • " Cochrane’s final conclusion reads as follows: “There is accumulating evidence that taking vitamin E or beta-carotene supplements will not prevent or delay the onset of AMD. There is no evidence with respect to other antioxidants supplements, such as vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, or any of the commonly marketed multivitamin combinations.”

  • Annals of Internal Medicine in Nov 2017 commented on the Cochrane report

    • Antioxident vitamin or mineral supplements do not prevent age-related macular degeneration
  • "For those with category 3 or 4 macular disease, at 5 years from the onset of the study,
    • the probability of progression to advanced AMD was
    • 28% for those given placebo,
    • 23% for those given antioxidants (vitamins E, C, and beta-carotene),
    • 22% for those given zinc, and
    • 20% for those given antioxidants and zinc (the AREDS formula)"

  • "And from this we get the Number Needed to Treat (NNT), which is also 13"

    Weston Price 1 hour video - 2017    with slides and transcript

Genetic testing for AREDS - nope

AREDSslowed AMD progression by 3X for ~30% of people, but 50% faster progression for 30% of people

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  • "If one has two copies of the CFH Y402H allele, they would develop wet AMD 2.8 years sooner, on average, compared to those who have no copies of the gene.[63] For those who have two copies of the ARMS2 A69S gene, they develop wet AMD 5.2 years sooner than an individual with no copies of the gene, again, on average"

  • "...in May of 2017, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) gave conditional approval for reimbursement of so-called pharmacogenetic testing for patients who have AMD" There is a CPT code

  • 57X increase in AMD in Japan in 30 years

  • "...as compared to the Ancestral Diet, the relative risk of developing AMD with the SAD diet is 74-fold greater."

    Genetic Testing in Persons with Age-Related Macular Degeneration and the Use of the AREDS Supplements; To Test or Not to Test? Jan 2015 📄 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki

    Company selling Macula gene tests to doctors

    Macular Degeneration, Genes, and Grandma’s Vitamins: To test or not to test? Science Based Medicine, March 2018

  • Conflicts of interest by both the proponents and opponents to AREDS gene testing

  • Original data (and above chart?) was not statistically significant

  • A subsequent indepentant analysis of the data did not find any gene problem

  • AREDS at Wikipedia

    • Probabiliy of AMD after 7 years: ~34% with placebo, ~23% with AREDS

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AMD and Gut Bionome

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CBD appears to treat AMD (via VEGF, etc)

Retina has both CBD1 and CBD2 receptors - 2016 (THC may help)

Expression and Function of the Endocannabinoid System in the Retina and the Visual Brain

    📄 Download the PDF from VitaminDWiki

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Avastin Injections slow wet AMD

  • What Is Avastin (Bevacizumab)? Everyday Health
    • Develped for various Cancers FDA approved for Colon Cancer in 2004, Off-label use for AMD
    • has a very long list of side effects
  • How Effective are Age-Related Macular Degeneration Treatments? has links to details
    • "A recently published extension of the CATT study showed that, after five years,
    • 50 % of patients receiving anti-VEGF injections had 20/40 vision or better in the treated eye;
    • 20 % had 20/200 or worse;
    • 30 % had vision somewhere between these two figures.
    • Many patients did not require injections every month after the initial 2-year study period.
  • Testamonials - 2013

Avastin helped by Vitamin D (for CRC, perhaps for AMD as well)

Smoking and AMD

  • Absorption of blue light by cigarette smoke components is highly toxic for retinal pigmented epithelial cells. - Feb 2019
    • Arch Toxicol. 2019 Feb;93(2):453-465. doi: 10.1007/s00204-018-2344-3
    • Tobacco smoke contains toxic polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons that can accumulate in retina RPE and which absorb blue light
    • "... we found IcdP to be at least 3000 times more toxic for RPE cells when irradiated with HEV light" (blue)

See also VitaminDWiki

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Seniors category start with

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See also web

Tags: Vision