ROANOKE TIMES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, June 15, 1993                   TAG: 9306150218
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short


VITAMIN A SLOWS LOSS OF SIGHT

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.

Dr. Eliot L. Berson, a Harvard Medical School researcher, said a dietary study of 600 patients with retinitis pigmentosa, or RP, showed that vitamin A therapy slowed the loss of eyesight.

He said a patient who started vitamin A therapy at age 32 could retain vision until age 70 instead of losing sight at age 63.

The same study also showed that large, supplemental doses of vitamin E actually accelerate the RP disease, Berson said. At one time, he said, it was thought that both vitamin A and E were beneficial.

"The course of disease was slowed, on average, among adults with the common form of RP who took vitamin A," said Berson in an interview. "There was a suggestion of a more rapid rate of decline among those taking 400 international units of vitamin E."

- Associated Press



 by CNB