Antioxidants & degenerative eye diseases.

According to findings published in the Feb. 2 advance online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, antioxidants may help preserve vision lost in degenerative eye diseases, and a new cell-based gene therapy technique...could eventually offer another option for arresting vision loss from these diseases.
A team from the Scripps Research Institute found that debilitating eye damage in rodents is caused by increased oxidative chemical activity sparked by...new blood vessel growth, rather than simply by the new blood vessel growth itself.
Next, the team was able to identify two remarkably effective treatments. One of these options is simply giving the mice doses of antioxidants orally in order to counterbalance the oxidative damage to neurons, blocking further deterioration in the eyes of treated mice. Then, by using a novel twist to standard gene therapy techniques, the researchers were able to deliver directly to the neurons in question a protein that protects neurons, effectively fortifying them against the onslaught of oxidants.

Posted in: Antioxidants, Degenerative eye diseases