The retina as a nutritionally responsive tissue

Evaluation of: Richer S, Devenport J, Lang JC: Differential temporal responses of macular pigment optical density in patients with atrophic age-related macular degeneration to dietary supplementation with xanthophylls. Optometry 78, 213–219 (2007) [1]. The Lutein Antioxidant Supplementation Trial (LAST) was conducted to evaluate whether supplementation of an antioxidant cocktail, including, most notably, the carotenoid lutein, would improve visual function in patients with early age-related macular degeneration. Age-related macular degeneration is the most common form of blindness in the USA and supplementation did, in fact, improve many of the visual functions tested in LAST. These visual improvements were strongly linked to increases in the amount of lutein and zeaxanthin within the retina (termed macular pigment) that resulted from the intervention. LAST II was therefore designed to determine what specific characteristics identified those patients whose retinas responded most strongly to the supplement...