FRIDAY, June 10, 2022 (HealthDay News) — For people with age-related macular degeneration (AMD), adding lutein/zeaxanthin to the Age-Related Eye Disease Study 2 (AREDS2) supplement appears to be safe, according to a study published online June 2 in JAMA Ophthalmology.

Emily Y. Chew, MD, of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, and colleagues examined the 10-year risk of developing lung cancer and late AMD in an epidemiological follow-up study to the AREDS2 clinical trial. Participants with bilateral or unilateral intermediate AMD were included. During the trial, participants were randomly assigned primarily to lutein/zeaxanthin and/or ω-3 fatty acids or placebo and secondarily to no beta-carotene versus beta-carotene and at low or high doses of zinc. All participants received AREDS2 supplements with lutein/zeaxanthin, vitamins C and E, and zinc plus copper in the follow-up study.

Data was included for 3,882 participants and 6,351 eyes. The researchers found that the odds ratio of having lung cancer was 1.82 (95% confidence interval, 1.06 to 3.12; P = 0.02) and 1.15 (interval 95% confidence, 0.79 to 1.66; P = 0.46) for people randomly assigned to beta-carotene. and lutein/zeaxanthin, respectively. Comparing lutein/zeaxanthin to no lutein/zeaxanthin, the relative risk of progression to late AMD was 0.91 (95% confidence interval, 0.84 to 0.99; P=0.02) ; the hazard ratio was not significant when comparing ω-3 fatty acids to no ω-3 fatty acids (1.01, 95% confidence interval, 0.93 to 1.09; P = 0.91).

“These 10-year data confirm that not only is the new formula safer, it is actually better at slowing the progression of AMD,” Chew said in a statement.

Bausch and Lomb provided AREDS2 supplements to AREDS2 study participants during the last five years of the follow-up study.

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