Eating foods rich in fat increases risk of eye disease: Study

Zee Media Bureau

Toronto: Is your diet rich in fat? Well, a new study has found that diets rich in fat ups the risk of major eye disease by changing in the bacterial communities of your gut. It eventually increases the risk of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD) or aggravate the blinding disease.

The findings said that bacteria in your intestines may play an important role in determining if you will develop blinding wet AMD -- late form of the disease.

The study was published in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.

Lead researcher Przemyslaw (Mike) Sapieha, Professor at University of Montreal in Canada said, "Our study suggests that diets rich in fat alter the gut microbiome in a way that aggravates wet AMD, a vascular disease of the aging eye".

"Influencing the types of microbes that reside in your gut either through diet or by other means may thus affect the chances of developing AMD and progression of this blinding disease," Sapieha added.

AMD is characterised by a heightened immune response, sizeable deposits of fat debris at the back of the eye called soft drusen (early AMD), destruction of nerve cells, and growth of new diseased blood vessels (wet AMD, late form).

While only accounting for roughly 10 per cent of cases of AMD, wet AMD is the primary form leading to blindness.

Current treatments becomes less effective with time. It is therefore important to find new ways to prevent the onset of this debilitating disease.

The researchers found that changes in the bacterial communities of your gut, such as those brought on by a diet rich in fat, can cause long-term low-grade inflammation in your whole body and eventually promote diseases such as wet AMD.

(With IANS inputs)