Eat more spinach, beetroot to maintain eye health, study suggests

Vegetables rich in nitrate, such as spinach (which has about 20 milligrams of nitrate per 100 grams) and beetroot (which has about 15 mg of nitrate per 100 g), could prevent macular degeneration, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

The study’s findings showed that people who ate between 100 to 142 mg of vegetable nitrates per day had a 35 percent lower risk of developing macular degeneration at early ages, when compared to people to ate less than 69 mg of vegetable nitrates per day.

Largely affecting those over 50 years old, macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss around the globe.

“This is the first time the effects of dietary nitrates on macular degeneration risk have been measured,” said Westmead Institute for Medical Research, Australia, and lead researcher of the study Bamini Gopinath. “If our findings are confirmed, incorporating a range of foods rich in dietary nitrates such as green leafy vegetables and beetroot could be a simple strategy to reduce the risk of early macular degeneration.”

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More than 2,000 Australian adults over the age of 49 were interviewed for the study and were monitored over a 15-year period.

The results of the research did not include any additional benefits or drawbacks for people who consumed more than 142 mg of dietary nitrate per day. An article covering the same study published by NDTV also cautioned that the study had been observational and did not establish any causal relationship between diet and onset of disease. (acr/kes)