Red wine is good for your eyes

Lovers of red wine will be pleased to know that they can enjoy a little of what they fancy and that it will be good for their eyesight too. Scientists have found that a powerful anti-ageing compound found in the skin of red grapes prevents vision from deteriorating.

The compound, resveratrol, is a protective agent against the formation of damaged blood vessels, a potential cause of blindness. It is also good to guard against and reduce the risk of lung cancer and heart disease, according to an article in express.co.uk. Another benefit is that it lowers the risk of prostate and colon cancers and generally slows down the ageing process. As such it is a powerful anti-ager.

The discovery that resveratrol benefits eyesight means that it has potential to be used as treatment for age-related macular degeneration. This is the most common cause of blindness in the over 50s.

It has been found from experiments on mice that resveratrol controlled and eliminated undesirable blood vessels.

Dr Rajendra Abte said of the discovery: "This study demonstrates that resveratrol, a naturally occurring compound, can directly inhibit the development of abnormal blood vessels both within and outside the eye." He added in a contribution in The American Journal of Pathology that the discovery could result in new treatment for blinding eye diseases and will enhance knowledge of how resveratrol works and lead to further understanding of certain cancers and heart disease, diseases related to angiogenesis which is the formation of new blood vessels.

Dr Abte also explained that the mice had been given much more resveratrol than is found in several bottles of red wine. This means that treatment of eye disease and prevention of blindness would need high dosage pills containing resveratrol.

Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in the UK, affecting 500,000 people usually over the age of 50. 90 per cent of cases are untreatable.

There is hope that resveratrol may help in the fight against blindness. Up to now it has been shown that the compound switches on "survival pathways" in the body and also that red wine possesses considerable health benefits. It is important to choose red wine over white as it has much higher levels of resveratrol offering ten times more protection. The current recommendation is two daily glasses for men and one for women. For those who love to drink red wine that will be more pleasurable than a pill!

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