According to a study led by an Indian-American, an ingredient found in red wine, blueberries, peanuts, grapes, and some plants can stop uncontrolled blood vessel growth in the eye.
Retina specialist Rajendra S. Apte, senior study investigator, said Resveratrol has been discovered as an anti-aging compound.
From in.news.yahoo.com:
Apte, formerly from Mumbai University and now with the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, added: ‘There were reports on resveratrol’s effects on blood vessels in other parts of the body, but there was no evidence that it had any effect within the eye.’
His discovery has implications for preserving vision in blinding eye diseases such as diabetic retinopathy and age-related mascular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness.
In diabetic retinopathy, blood vessels don’t develop beneath the retina. Rather, they grow into the retina itself.
Diabetic retinopathy causes vision loss in about 20 percent of the patients with diabetes. Almost 24 million people have diabetes in the US. The formation of new blood vessels also plays a key role in certain cancers.
Conducting experiments in mouse retinas, the researchers found that resveratrol can inhibit formation of new blood vessels.
These findings were published in the American Journal of Pathology.