Lutein is one of 600 naturally occurring carotenoid pigments which have antioxidant properties. It cannot be made in the body and must therefore come from your diet. Lutein is found in sweetcorn, carrots and other yellow-orange fruit and vegetables, as well as spinach and other dark-green leafy vegetables.

It is important for healthy vision. It becomes concentrated in a part of the retina called the macula, where it is partly converted into another carotenoid called zeaxanthin. The macula is responsible for the fine vision needed for reading and recognising faces. When light stimulates macular cells, it triggers a series of chemical reactions which, as well as sending visual images to the brain, release a cascade of harmful free radicals. If not neutralised immediately, these free radicals damage and destroy light-sensitive cells. Lutein and zeaxanthin protect the macula from damage through their antioxidant activity, which mops up free radicals, and because their yellow colour filters out light in the harmful blue-green region of the visible spectrum. That’s why lutein is sometimes referred to as nature’s sunglasses’.
If your intake of lutein is poor, you are at increased risk of developing age-related macular degeneration (AMD) the leading cause of registered blindness in people over the age of 50. People with macular degeneration have, on average, 70% less macular pigment in their eyes than those with healthy vision.

There are two types of AMD: wet’, in which new, fragile blood vessels leak fluid into surrounding tissues, and dry’, whereby new blood-vessel formation has not occurred.

Wet AMD is treated with laser therapy to seal leaking blood vessels. For dry AMD, the mainstay of treatment and prevention is to obtain a good dietary intake of lutein-rich foods which can reduce the risk of AMD by an estimated 40%.

Lutein supplements are protective, too. People taking 10mg lutein supplements per day have been shown to achieve a 50% increase in macular pigment optical density after one year. Follow- up research published in Optometry the Journal of the American Optometric Association also shows that taking 10mg lutein supplements per day can improve visual acuity in those with dry’ AMD by the equivalent of 5.4 letters on a Snellen chart, compared with no improvement in those taking inactive placebo.

Cataracts: high intakes of lutein can reduce the risk of cataracts. A study involving almost 77,500 female nurses aged 45-71 found that, after age, smoking and other potential cataract risk factors had been taken into account, those with the highest intake of lutein and zeaxanthin were 22% less likely to develop cataracts severe enough to require extraction.

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