Look Beyond the Eye

There is an important piece of common sense that has been largely missing from the way macular degeneration is managed: the health of the macula does not exist separately from the health of the rest of the body.

Over the years, we began asking a simple question: what would happen if, instead of focusing only on the eye, we also looked carefully at the metabolic, nutritional, inflammatory, hormonal, and other health factors that may influence how well the retina functions?

That question changed the way we approached macular degeneration.

We found that by developing individualized care plans designed to improve and support overall health, we could also influence what was happening in the macula. In many patients, the goal became more than simply watching the disease progress. We began seeing patients stabilize and, in a meaningful number of cases, show signs of improvement.

That led us to a very simple message for eye doctors:

Look beyond the eye.

The eye is part of the body, and improving the physiologic environment in which the retina has to function may give us another important way to help patients with macular degeneration.

This video tells the story of how we came to that conclusion, the challenges we faced along the way, and the years of work that went into developing this approach.

It was not an easy journey, but it has been an important one. I hope you find the story worthwhile—and that it encourages you to think about macular degeneration from a broader perspective.

The Macular Program