Risk factors for the incidence of Advanced Age-Related Macular Degeneration in the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS) AREDS report no. 19.

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Zinc and Antioxidants in this randomized controlled trial publication.

To describe the association of demographic, behavioral, medical, and nonretinal ocular factors with the incidence of neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and central geographic atrophy (CGA) in the Age-Related Eye Disease Study (AREDS), a randomized trial of antioxidants and zinc supplementation prophylaxis for development of advanced AMD.

Who Took Part

PubMed indexes the participants as middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized.

Because people in this Zinc study were split into groups at random, differences between the groups are less likely to reflect who happened to join each one.

Of individuals with early or intermediate AMD at baseline with a median follow-up of 6.3 years, 788 were at risk of developing advanced AMD in one eye (the fellow eye had advanced AMD), and 2506 were at risk in both eyes.

The incidence of neovascular AMD and CGA was assessed from stereoscopic color fundus photographs taken at baseline and at annual visits beginning at year 2.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Antioxidants, Body Mass Index, Choroidal Neovascularization, Dietary Supplements, Disease Progression, Incidence and Macular Degeneration.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized study of Zinc and Antioxidants.

The abstract goes on to report its results in about 7 sentences; this page does not restate them, so read the paper for the findings and their limits.

The publication is from 2005 (Ophthalmology), a journal based in United States.

More context: the related Vitamin D, K2, Magnesium and Zinc library page, all human trials.