Continued from page 3.
Personalized Medicine for AMD – Genetic Testing & AMD
Greg Hines is the CEO of ArcticDx, the company that is leading the way in genetic testing for macular degeneration. He lives in Canada and his mother and sister both have suffered from Wet AMD. They have bad genes for oxygen metabolism and they both smoked.
99.9% of each of us is identical and the medical industry relies on that sameness. 60% of AMD risk is genetic and 40% is lifestyle.
The Macula Risk Test is prognostic (gives information about the future) & pharmacogenetic (gives information about eye vitamins). The Macula Risk test is 90% accurate at predicting which 15-20% of people with drusen will progress to advanced AMD. Vita Risk is the test for zinc risk in eye vitamins.
OCT & fluoroscopic angiograms can sometimes see early wet AMD before vision loss, but this is difficult.
The AREDS research started in the early 90s with results published in 2001 and was sponsored by the National Eye Institute (NIH). Risk of progression from moderate dry AMD to either wet AMD or geographic atrophy (GA) was reduced by 17% with antioxidants alone, 21% with zinc oxide alone, and 25% with antioxidants & inc. Bausch & Lomb & NEI (National Eye Institute) make $270,000,000 per year from 3,000,000 patients and other competitors create a $500,000,000 annual market for these vitamins.
Greg asked the question: Is the 25% risk reduction for everyone with AMD?
A series of studies have been completed over the past 10 years that seem to show that some AMD patients are hurt rather than helped when zinc is part of the eye vitamin. The NEI said that the differences “weren’t significant”.
A 2016 study by Seddon et al from Tufts & Harvard found that 2/3 of the AMD patients saw risk reduction from 35 – 85%, but that 1/3 of the AMD patients – with certain genes – saw an increase of over 150% in the progression to advanced wet AMD. This group had the same C1A0 & C2A0 genes.
All the accepted early research combined progression to dry advanced AMD (GA) with advanced Wet AMD. If you only look at those who progress to wet AMD, the statistics show clearly that zinc is dangerous for these gene types. Only three studies have focused on wet AMD.
Medicare was ready to approve reimbursement for the Vita Risk test until AAO (American Academy of Ophthalmology) and NIH got them to rescind the approval.
AREDS2 and lab tests are not regulated by the FDA, but the FDA can make manufacturers put warnings on labels. The FDA has been requested to put such a warning on AREDS2 and its clones that contain zinc. After this request was submitted on 5/8/18, meetings were held with the FDA, and they have agreed that there is an “indication of harm” for 13% of patients.
Harvard University put out a Press Release from its Dept. of Ophthalmology which “Confirmed that 15% of patients are harmed by a 300% increased loss of vision”
“DO NO HARM” is still the Doctor’s oath.
Macularisk.com has a list of eye vitamins without zinc.
Greg was our most impassioned speaker and got the most applause from the entire conference.
He is our Facebook group’s own Rock Star as is another person at ArcticDx Gerry Belgraver – along with Sue and Linda!!
Lin/Linda here: Thanks for your kind words, Joann, and for your GREAT reporting! For more information about the AREDS studies and about zinc, click here for Eye Vitamins: Part 6 – What’s all the talk about zinc? Introduction.