-Kelly-

REPORTER: Anna Coren
BROADCAST DATE: July 5, 2004

Macular degeneration is the most common cause of blindness in Australia but new research suggests avoiding vegetable oils could prevent the condition.


It's spreading like a disease – a blindness called macular degeneration affecting at least 800,000 Australians and costing $1.5 billion per year in health care.
But with the latest research pointing to vegetable oils as the main culprit, it's possible we may be able to fend off this disease by simply changing our diets.
You might not cook with vegetable or canola oil but take a look at the ingredients in any sauce, dip, bread, margarine or biscuit – any processed food for that matter. Vegetable oil is hidden in all of them.
Most of us have been consuming these processed foods from the time we could walk. Dr Paul Beaumont from the macular degeneration foundation has been studying the link.
"[The research] showed that people eating vegetable oil got the disease twice as commonly as the people who didn't," Dr Beaumont said.
"Even more convincing was a prospective study where they looked at patients with the disease and those eating too much vegetable oil progressed at 3.8 times the rate of those eating a little vegetable oil.
"You look at bread, they make it on margarine, you look at currants and they've gone and sprayed vegetable oil on them to stop them from sticking, you go and try and get tinned fish and they've put it in vegetable oil.
"So yes, it's become ubiquitous, it's crept right into our food chain and you hardly know you're eating it."
Gwen Oliver was diagnosed with macular degeneration two years ago. She was astonished when Dr Beaumont told her to steer clear of vegetable oils and to only cook with extra virgin olive oil.
"I was surprised about diet and all the products that we've been eating in the past," Ms Oliver said. "We've always had it advertised that vegetable oil was far better for us."
The macular sits at the back of the eye. It's made up of many different nerve cells. The oils that you eat become part of your eye but normally they're used and flushed out.
When you're eating vegetable oils, researchers believe the eye can't seem to biodegrade the oil and it ends up blocking the cells and causing macular degeneration.
"In the 1920s and 30s they started to get big presses that produced hundreds of tons of vegetable oil," Dr Beaumont said. "In 1957 margarine outsold butter so we've had this massive infiltration of our food chain by vegetable oils."
------

Freaky

mh67511

Is this true? Seems kind of fishy to me. Olive Oil IS a lot better to use, I think, but Canola Oil doesn't seem bad to me; it has a lot of poly and mono-unsaturated fats. But I don't know about any other oils.

Timeo

What are we supposed to use then? Animal oil = no good. Vegetable oil = no good. What then? No oil in food?

Anabela

I think our only option left would be olive oil. That is until they discover something wrong with olive oil.

btw, the title is so funny. Blindness in eyes? If it causes blindness, then it must be in the eyes. Can other places be affected by blindness besides the eyes?

*Lauren

Personally I love the fact its "BLINDNESS in EYES!" I feel like screaming "OH MY GOD" and the playing the 'dum dum dum' music. But that's just me, and I'm strange.

Drekkan

I can also see the US ads "Responsibility - The anti-Oil".

But seriously, you people use vegetable and animal oils. Come on, everyone knows we should just cook all our foods in crude oil...

I mean, you can trust me, right ?

Timeo

Blindness of the heart. It afflicts many people today actually.

TheAngel

Of course, everything that's every existed has been bad at one time or another. If these oils cause blindness then so does chocolate bars that a man happend to eat daily when he went blind due to a totally genetic quality. Of course, with everything I eat, I should be dead, weight 350 lbs, have cancer, short-term memory loss, I shouldn't have any hair, I should be blind, deff, mute, sterile, and every other medical condition one could be stricken with.

Lylie

Eh? This looks like olive oil propaganda. Also, last time I checked olive oil is a vegetable oil.

Cress

That confused me too. Unless they mean that olives are fruit, because they grow on trees and have seeds. Then they wouldn't be classified as a vegetable.

Enigma, I.C.

When I saw the headline I was thinking, "where well else can you go blind?"

I think there should be more research into this question. The report SUGGESTS that vegetable oil could contribute to blindness. I wouldn't panic just yet.

-Kelly-

Here's more...

Eye fears continue over diet
REPORTER: Laura Sparkes
BROADCAST DATE: July 7, 2004

The results of a study linking vegetable oils to a condition that causes blindness have worried millions of Australians. Experts have some advice on what to eat.


Like millions of Australians, Lisa White is worried. After hearing about our story on macular degeneration this week she's been trying to establish which foods contain vegetable oil.
"It's shocking," Lisa said. "I want to know why are they hiding this - we need to know this as parents now."
"This generation, my kids are going to grow up and I could be doing something now to stop them going blind.
"But if i dont know about it then I'm feeding them these things thinking I'm doing the right thing - and really I'm harming them."
The latest research points to vegetable oil as a cause of macular degeneration, which is the most common cause of blindness in Australia.
The condition affects 800,000 Australians and costs $1.5 billion dollars every year in health care.
But we know so little about this disease and even less about how to protect ourselves against it.
Dr Paul Beaumont from the Macular Degeneration Foundation is horrified at the tenfold increase he's witnessed in the condition over the last 30 years.
"Vegetable oil is in every part of our food chain," Dr Beaumont said. "It's in bread, it's in sauces, even if you buy tinned fish it's often put in vegetable oil – you've got peanut butter, you'll see its got vegetable oil."
"I think we could halve the number of people going blind with macular degeneration if we could change their diet, cut out vegetable oil," he said.
To understand how vegetable oil affects our sight, let's take a journey into the eye. The macular sits at the back – it's made up of different nerve cells.
---

I'm glad I don't eat margarine, only butter

-Kelly-

REPORTER: Dr John D'Arcy
BROADCAST DATE: July 23, 2004

Researchers disagree over the link to blindness. Researcher Dr Paul Beaumont believes there's a link between vegetable oil and macular degeneration. But others say the warning is premature.

Macular degeneration is Australia's most common cause of blindness. Dr Paul Beaumont believes he could prevent two-thirds of this blindness if Aussies changed their diet and stamped out vegetable oil.

He says the link with vegetable oil comes from US research.

"I think it's prudent to take notice of the American studies," he said. "But we do need Australian studies and research here."

Another network is labelling Dr Beaumont - a world expert in macular degeneration - a "fibber".

"I'm not surprised," Dr Beaumont said. "There's millions of dollars in this industry and they'd have to come out and say I was telling fibs."

David Brown is deputy chief executive officer of the Macular Degeneration Foundation. He says the foundation has been stewing over the US research for months.

"The whole of our society is based on the right of people to know when they are at risk, even if that risk is small," Mr Brown said.

Jay

whoa but i don't use vegetablt oil though