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Macular Degeneration

Macular Degeneration is a chronic, progressive eye disease that affects the central retina or macula. The most common symptoms include:

  • central vision distortion or scotoma (blind spot)
  • contrast sensitivity decrease (reduced ability to judge contrast) and
  • colour vision loss or distortion

Eventually, Macular Degeneration will cause devastating central vision loss that can not be corrected and/or reversed by eyeglasses, contact lenses and/or laser surgery. New drugs acting on the later stages of Macular Degeneration have shown good results in some patients, but only to potentially stabilize the disease and not reverse or cure the affliction.

Some facts about Macular Degeneration:

  1. Leading cause of acquired legal blindness and visual impairment among people over the age of 50 in North America and other Western industrialized societies
  2. More than 15 million Macular Degeneration patients in North America.
  3. 1.5 million new cases each year
  4. Center for Disease Control in the United States predicts 30 million cases by 2020
  5. Two major types of Macular Degeneration:
    1. Dry Macular Degeneration – 90%
    2. Wet Macular Degeneration – 10%
  6. More people will go blind due to Macular Degeneration than cataracts and glaucoma combined.

Even though there is no known exact cause for Macular Degeneration, its origins are considered multi-factorial and these factors may place you at a higher risk:

  • Family history of Macular Degeneration
  • Low macular pigment density
  • Gender – women more than men
  • Smoking
  • High cholesterol
  • Farsightedness and
  • Obesity