- Glaucoma is a type of eye disease that can injure the optic nerve and lead to blindness.
- Past studies show there are several ways a person can help lower their risk for glaucoma, including eating a Healthy diet rich in certain nutrients.
- A new study has found that supplementation with B vitamins and choline may help slow the progression of glaucoma, via a mouse model.
About 80 million people globally live with glaucoma — an umbrella term for a group of eye diseases that can injure the optic nerve, leading to blindness.
There is currently no cure for glaucoma. Medications, surgery, and laser treatments are currently used to help treat and slow the progression of the condition.
Past studies show there are several ways a person can help lower their risk for glaucoma, including not smoking, exercising regularly, wearing sunglasses, limiting caffeine intake, lowering their blood pressure, and eating a Healthy diet.
Researchers have also previously identified certain nutrients that might help protect a person’s eyes from glaucoma, including omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin B3, vitamin A, vitamin C, and the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin.
Now, a new study recently published in the journal
For this study, researchers focused on an amino acid that naturally occurs in the body called homocysteine. Homocysteine plays a crucial role in protein synthesis.
However, past studies show that too much homocysteine in the body — known as
Past studies have linked high homocysteine levels to the development and progression of glaucoma.
However, in this current study, researchers found when mice with glaucoma were given higher levels of homocysteine, it did not make their glaucoma worse. They also discovered that increased amounts of homocysteine in the blood were not linked to how fast the disease progressed.
“Our conclusion is that homocysteine is a bystander in the disease process, not a player,” James Tribble, researcher and assistant professor at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and co-lead author of this study said in a press release.
“Altered homocysteine levels may reveal that the retina has lost its ability to use certain vitamins that are necessary to maintain healthy metabolism. That’s why we wanted to investigate whether supplements of these vitamins could protect the retina,” he said.
Researchers then provided supplements of B vitamins — including B6, B9 (folate), and B12 — as well as the essential nutrient choline to the glaucoma mouse model.
Scientists discovered that in mice with slow development of glaucoma, the optic nerve damage was completely stopped. And in mice with a more aggressive form of glaucoma, the supplementation helped slow down the disease’s progression.
The researchers mentioned that in all experiments with the mouse glaucoma model, eye pressure was not treated. Glaucoma is normally associated with elevated eye pressure or intraocular pressure (IOP). A primary treatment for glaucoma is lowering the eye’s IOP through the use of medications, laser treatments, or surgery.
Scientists believe this shows that the vitamin supplementation may impact glaucoma in a different way than lower eye pressure.
Researchers are now reportedly beginning a clinical trial to test their findings on humans.
Medical News Today had the opportunity to speak with David I. Geffen, OD, FAAO, director of optometric and refractive services at the Gordon Schanzlin New Vision in La Jolla, CA, about this study.
“Any new method of decreasing the damage from glaucoma is a welcome addition to our ability to save eyesight,” Geffen commented. “This could be revolutionary in, it is one of the first studies to show supplements will help control glaucoma. As our population is aging, we are seeing a large increase of glaucoma patients in our practice.”
“Because glaucoma is a progressive disease and we do not have a cure, any new treatment is a welcome addition,” he continued. “We know glaucoma medications seem to be less effective over time. Therefore, we need to keep finding more new ways to help control this process and eventually cure the disease. This treatment may be an important way to look at new ways to control glaucoma.”
“In the future I would like to see some longer-term studies with glaucoma patients,” Geffen added. “I would also like to see investigations on similar types of treatments utilizing other supplements.”
MNT also spoke with Benjamin Bert, MD, a board certified ophthalmologist at MemorialCare Orange Coast Medical Center in Fountain Valley, CA, about this research.
Bert commented that anytime we make any discoveries that show the potential to slow or prevent any damage from diseases like glaucoma is always a good thing.
“There have been other nutrition studies that have been done in the past that have shown some benefit, and so anything that we can add to what we can do on a daily basis is, of course, of great importance and great interest,” he added.
“Right now, the only treatments that we have for glaucoma specifically are eye drops and surgeries to lower the eye pressure, but we’re discovering more and more that there’s other things that are happening that can actually cause the progression of the glaucoma. So continuing to explore the actual background of why this damage is happening is very important to be able to develop other treatments for it, and also ways to prevent it from happening in the first place.”
— Benjamin Bert, MD
“And this study, in particular, kind of identified homocysteine as one of the metabolic components that was causing some of the damage, which had been thought of before but not directly treated,” he added. “And with the vitamin supplements showing some prevention benefit, that’s an exciting thing for us to be able to have on the horizon.”
