A new study, reported in The New York Times, suggests that women whose diet was rich in omega-3 fatty acids found in fish were at significantly lower risk of developing age-related macular degeneration.
The Harvard Women’s Health Study, which followed 39,876 middle-aged women, asked paticipants to fill out detailed food-frequency questionnaires at the start of the study in 1993.
The women were followed for an average of 10 years, at the end of which 235 had developed macular degeneration.
This progressive eye disease is the leading cause of chronic irreversible loss of vision in the elderly.
It occurs because of damage to the macular, or central part of the retina and is a major cause of blindness in those 50 years old and above.
People with the condition find it difficult to read or recognize faces, though they will have enough peripheral vision (vision outside the central area of one’s gaze) to continue with other daily activities.
The analysis, which appeared in Archives of Ophthalmology, found that women who had reported eating one or more servings of fish per week were 42 percent less likely to develop age-related macular degeneration than those who ate less than a serving each month.
Eating canned tuna and dark-meat fish like mackerel, salmon, sardines, bluefish and swordfish appeared to have the most benefit.
