Macular Degeneration and Cholesterol Gene Linked

In a finding that could help healthcare experts identify new courses of treatment for one of the most common age-related eye disease in the world, a group of scientists managed to establish a direct link between a gene regulating “good cholesterol” and macular degeneration. The condition is the most common form of degenerative eye illness, and it is age-related, mostly affecting the elderly. The new data could be used to create advanced therapies against the condition, helping to improve the quality of life for many seniors, ScienceNow reports.

As macular degeneration develops, it tends to affect the back of the retina. Various lesions begin to form at the location, and the central part of people's fields-of-view is therefore impaired. The condition deteriorates with time, until most or all vision is lost. Many researchers have doubted that cholesterol could have anything to do with eye disease, because the connection is not immediately visible. However, scientists know that the substance tends to accumulate on the back of the eye, as people get older. Until now, the reason why cholesterol accumulates in the eye has remained a mystery.

For the new experiments, the research team, based at the Tufts University in Boston, conducted a comparative analysis of the genomes of individuals who were either healthy or were suffering from macular degeneration. They were looking for genetic variants that may be construed as an indicator that a particular individual's risk of developing the condition later in life. This would be very useful for creating screening tests that could be used since infancy or early adulthood to inform healthier diets and other therapies to prevent cholesterol accumulations.

“If there's some variant that causes [that nutrition system] to be less efficient that could have some long-term effect on susceptibility to eye disease,” says University of Alabama in Birmingham histopathologist Christine Curcio, who did not participate in the investigation. Details of the research appear in the April 12 online issue of the respected journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). Curcio believes that an immediate application for the new discovery would be using existing heart drugs destined to fight bad cholesterol on the eye directly. Clinical trials will most likely begin in upcoming years.