Vitamin A Appears to Slow Eye Disease

WASHINGTON — Large daily doses of Vitamin A can slow the slide toward blindness for patients with retinitis pigmentosa and may save years of eyesight for 100,000 Americans with the inherited affliction, a new study indicates.

The same study also showed that large supplemental doses of Vitamin E actually accelerate the disease, said Dr. Eliot L. Berson, a Harvard Medical School researcher.

Berson said a dietary study of 600 patients with retinitis pigmentosa showed that a patient who started Vitamin A therapy at age 32 could retain vision until age 70 instead of losing it at age 63.

A report on the study is published this week in the Archives of Ophthalmology.

Achieving the beneficial effect requires daily doses of 15,000 international units, or IU, of Vitamin A. Berson said only Vitamin A derived from palmitate was proven in the study to be beneficial.