scholarly journals Age-Related Macular Degeneration: Pathogenesis, Genetic Background, and the Role of Nutritional Supplements

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilita M. Moschos ◽  
Eirini Nitoda ◽  
Irini P. Chatziralli ◽  
Constantinos A. Demopoulos

Age-related macular degeneration (ARMD) is the leading cause of severe vision loss and blindness worldwide, mainly affecting people over 65 years old. Dry and wet ARDM are the main types of the disease, which seem to have a multifactorial background. The aim of this review is to summarize the mechanisms of ARMD pathogenesis and exhibit the role of diet and nutritional supplements in the onset and progression of the disease. Environmental factors, such as smoking, alcohol, and, diet appear to interact with mutations in nuclear and mitochondrial DNA, contributing to the pathogenesis of ARMD. Inflammatory mediators and oxidative stress, induced by the daily exposure of retina to high pressure of oxygen and light radiation, have been also associated with ARMD lesions. Other than medical and surgical therapies, nutritional supplements hold a significant role in the prevention and treatment of ARMD, eliminating the progression of macular degeneration.

2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Parmeggiani ◽  
Mario R. Romano ◽  
Ciro Costagliola ◽  
Francesco Semeraro ◽  
Carlo Incorvaia ◽  
...  

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a multifactorial disease that represents the most common cause of irreversible visual impairment among people over the age of 50 in Europe, the United States, and Australia, accounting for up to 50% of all cases of central blindness. Risk factors of AMD are heterogeneous, mainly including increasing age and different genetic predispositions, together with several environmental/epigenetic factors, that is, cigarette smoking, dietary habits, and phototoxic exposure. In the aging retina, free radicals and oxidized lipoproteins are considered to be major causes of tissue stress resulting in local triggers for parainflammation, a chronic status which contributes to initiation and/or progression of many human neurodegenerative diseases such as AMD. Experimental and clinical evidences strongly indicate the pathogenetic role of immunologic processes in AMD occurrence, consisting of production of inflammatory related molecules, recruitment of macrophages, complement activation, microglial activation and accumulation within those structures that compose an essential area of the retina known as macula lutea. This paper reviews some attractive aspects of the literature about the mechanisms of inflammation in AMD, especially focusing on those findings or arguments more directly translatable to improve the clinical management of patients with AMD and to prevent the severe vision loss caused by this disease.


2020 ◽  
Vol 77 (5) ◽  
pp. 779-780 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anu Kauppinen

AbstractProlonged life expectancies contribute to the increasing prevalence of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) that is already the leading cause of severe vision loss among the elderly in developed countries. In dry AMD, the disease culminates into vast retinal atrophy, whereas the wet form is characterized by retinal edema and sudden vision loss due to neovascularization originating from the choroid beneath the Bruch’s membrane. There is no treatment for dry AMD and despite intravitreal injections of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) that suppress the neovessel formation, also wet AMD needs new therapies to prevent the disease progression and to serve patients lacking of positive response to current medicines. Knowledge on disease mechanisms is a prerequisite for the drug development, which is hindered by the multifactorial nature of AMD. Numerous distinguished publications have revealed AMD mechanisms at the cellular and molecular level and in this multi-author review, we take a bit broader look at the topic with some novel aspects.


Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a chronic and progressive disease of the central retina that causes vision loss in people over 50 years of age. With an understanding of the role of VEGF in AMD, intravitreal anti-VEGF agents are used as the most important therapeutic tool in the management of AMD. In this review we try to discuss intravitreal ranibizumab treatment and treatment regimens in wet (neovascular) age-related macular degeneration.


2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 21-27
Author(s):  
N.V. Malachkova ◽  
Mohammad Mashhour Mohammad Masa’deh ◽  
Osama Mohammad Miteb Al-Jarrah ◽  
H.P. Liudkevych ◽  
D.S. Sukhan

Age-related macular degeneration mainly affects the elderly and is one of the most common causes of rapidly progressive vision loss. Over more than 150 years of research, the scientific community has gone from understanding the macroscopic picture of the lesion, presumable identification of drusen as the main morphological manifestation of nosology, to detailed classifications and determine the role of genetic determinants in the etiopathogenesis of the disease — high specificity, the possibility of preventive analysis, and much unclear in the field of genetic diagnosis of eye diseases determine the accurate attention of specialized research groups to the early diagnosis using genetic analysis. The review article was aimed to systematize the information about possible links in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration and identify potential polymorphisms that can initiate and modulate the activity of these links. During the study, we could find out five main mechanisms of damage to the vascular membrane of the eye itself, which are affected by single nucleotide polymorphisms. The hig­hest affinity was shown by genetic variants of separate sites of CFH (rs1061170), HTRA1 (rs11200638), TNF (rs1800629), VEGFA (rs2010963). Literature data obtained from foreign and national sources indexed by Scopus, Web of Science databases, in particular for the last 5 years, pay special attention to these areas as potential predictors or modifiers of pathological processes involved in the process of macular degeneration. Despite the large number of studies examining the predisposition, pathogenesis, diagnosis, and treatment of age-related macular degeneration to stop the spread of vision loss, only a few issues are understood thoroughly. Considering the successful cases of application of biological and gene therapy for the management of such patients, we see new horizons in the detailed study of molecular interactions that underlie the pathology. The review confirms the active role of polymorphisms in one of the most relevant pathological processes of the human eye.


2021 ◽  
Vol 74 (3) ◽  
pp. 767-772
Author(s):  
Tetiana M. Komarova ◽  
Oksana P. Vitovska ◽  
Julia I. Komisarenko ◽  
Vita M. Kohan

The aim: Analyze the ophthalmic studies on diagnostics and treatment of patients with age-related macular degeneration to optimize diagnostics and management tactics. Materials and methods: The analysis of scientific papers due to age-related macular degeneration, vitamin D and its functions from scientometric databases: PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science. The methods were next: systematic approach, analysis, summarization and comparison. Conclusions: Age-related macular degeneration is a chronic, progressive disease among people older than 50 years. Late diagnostics and inappropriate treatment may lead to irreversible central vision loss and social disadaptation. Modern studies on the pathogenesis and treatment of this pathology (that are due to the role of the immune system, antioxidants and microelements) demonstrate the effectiveness and prospects for further development around the world to find new ways to solve this problem.


Author(s):  
Maeva Dufies

Age related macular degeneration (AMD) is a disease associated with aging of the central area of the retina called the macula. It results in a progressive loss of central vision.In western countries, AMD is the leading cause of severe vision loss in people over the age of 50. About 25 to 30 million people suffer from AMD. Due to the aging of the population, this figure could double in the next 35 years.


2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (20) ◽  
pp. 3475-3485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lijuan Zhang ◽  
Xuan Cui ◽  
Yangjun Han ◽  
Karen Sophia Park ◽  
Xiaohong Gao ◽  
...  

Abstract Hypoxia associated with the high metabolic demand of rods has been implicated in the pathology of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of adult blindness in the developed world. The majority of AMD-associated severe vision loss cases are due to exudative AMD, characterized by neovascularization. To further investigate the causes and histopathology of exudative AMD, we conditionally induced hypoxia in a novel preclinical AMD model (Pde6gcreERT2/+;Vhl−/−) by targeting Vhl and used multimodal imaging and immunohistochemistry to track the development of hypoxia-induced neovascularization. In addition to developing a preclinical model that phenocopies exudative AMD, our studies revealed that the photoreceptor hypoxic response initiates and drives type 3 neovascularization, mainly in the outer retina. Activation of the VHL-HIF1a-VEGF-EPO pathway in the adult retina led to long-term neovascularization, retinal hemorrhages and compromised retinal layers. Our novel preclinical model would accelerate the testing of therapies that use metabolomic approaches to ameliorate AMD.


Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) commonly develops after the age of 50. AMD is a progressive degenerative disorder of the macula in which central vision becomes impaired and leading cause of blindness. Severe vision loss occurs in the late stages of the disease. Untreated wet-form (neovascular) AMD leads to a rapid loss of vision in the affected eye. Many studies have shown vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) as a key mediator in wet-form (neovascular) AMD. This review mentions the aflibercept treatment and treatment algorithms in wet-form (neovascular) age-related macular degeneration.


2012 ◽  
Vol 06 (01) ◽  
pp. 43
Author(s):  
Eric H Souied ◽  

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of vision loss for which treatment options are limited. The socioeconomic benefits of prevention of AMD are enormous. While considerable observational evidence supports an association between dietary fats and AMD, the relation between specific types of fat and AMD has been unclear. Recent research has focused on the ω-3 polyunsaturated acids docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). The diets of industrialised nations contain higher levels of saturated fats, trans fatty acids and ω-6 fatty acids and less ω-3 fatty acids than they did in the past. This imbalance may have important implications for retinal health. Several observational studies have found that consumption of oily fish and high dietary intakes of DHA and EPA are associated with a reduced risk of developing AMD. Recent studies evaluating nutritional supplements containing ω-3 fatty acids for the treatment of AMD suggest a potential beneficial effect but further research in this area is warranted.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. e000774
Author(s):  
Minwei Wang ◽  
Shiqi Su ◽  
Shaoyun Jiang ◽  
Xinghuai Sun ◽  
Jiantao Wang

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the most common eye disease in elderly patients, which could lead to irreversible vision loss and blindness. Increasing evidence indicates that amyloid β-peptide (Aβ) might be associated with the pathogenesis of AMD. In this review, we would like to summarise the current findings in this field. The literature search was done from 1995 to Feb, 2021 with following keywords, ‘Amyloid β-peptide and age-related macular degeneration’, ‘Inflammation and age-related macular degeneration’, ‘Angiogenesis and age-related macular degeneration’, ‘Actin cytoskeleton and amyloid β-peptide’, ‘Mitochondrial dysfunction and amyloid β-peptide’, ‘Ribosomal dysregulation and amyloid β-peptide’ using search engines Pubmed, Google Scholar and Web of Science. Aβ congregates in subretinal drusen of patients with AMD and participates in the pathogenesis of AMD through enhancing inflammatory activity, inducing mitochondrial dysfunction, altering ribosomal function, regulating the lysosomal pathway, affecting RNA splicing, modulating angiogenesis and modifying cell structure in AMD. The methods targeting Aβ are shown to inhibit inflammatory signalling pathway and restore the function of retinal pigment epithelium cells and photoreceptor cells in the subretinal region. Targeting Aβ may provide a novel therapeutic strategy for AMD.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document