Ingredient in Red Wine, Blueberries May Help Prevent Blindness

In wine, there is truth -- and also, apparently, sight.

Providing further fodder for the red-wine-as-elixir notion, new research out of Missouri has found that an ingredient in it called resveratrol could prevent various diseases that cause blindness.

Vision specialists at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis say that resveratrol, also found in blueberries, peanuts, grapes and other plants, stops the uncontrollable growth of blood vessels in the eye.

That could, in turn, preserve sight in sufferers of blinding conditions like diabetic retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration -- the leading cause of blindness in American adults over the age of 50, according to the research.

The findings appear in the July issue of the American Journal of Pathology.

"A great deal of research has identified resveratrol as an anti-aging compound, and given our interest in age-related eye disease, we wanted to find out whether there was a link," Washington University retina specialist and lead author Dr. Rajendra S. Apte said in a statement.

The rapid formation of new blood vessels, known as angiogenesis, also has been cited as a key factor in some cancers and in atherosclerosis -- a syndrome affecting the arterial blood vessels in which the artery walls thicken after a buildup of cholesterol or other fatty material. The Washington University scientists found that resveratrol can block angiogenesis.

Investigators say that abnormal blood vessels in the retina of mice began to disappear after the animals were given resveratrol. The compound served to both prevent new blood vessels from forming and eliminate abnormal vessels that already had begun to develop in the mice.

The researchers also discovered a new mechanism in the body that is apparently responsible for the compound's beneficial effects.

"We have identified a novel pathway that could become a new target for therapies," said Apte, an assistant professor of ophthalmology, visual sciences and developmental biology. "And we believe the pathway may be involved both in age-related eye disease and in other diseases where angiogenesis plays a destructive role."

Because resveratrol is given orally, patients may prefer it to many existing treatments for retinal disease that require eye injections, according to Apte. The compound is easily absorbed in the body, he added.

"This could potentially be a preventive therapy in high-risk patients," he said. "And because it worked on existing, abnormal blood vessels in the animals, it may be a therapy that can be started after angiogenesis already is causing damage."

Further research is needed because the disease manifests itself differently in humans than it does in mice. Furthermore, the doses of resveratrol given to the lab animals were very large, vastly exceeding the amount found in several bottles of red wine.

If approved as a treatment for people suffering from blinding diseases, it would need to be administered in pill form because of the high doses needed, Apte said.

Funding for the research came from the National Eye Institute of the National Institutes for Health, among other institutions.

published 6/30/2010 on AOL Health.