Age: A Significant Risk Factor for AMD

As the term alone suggests, older age is one of the main risk factors for age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Mostly affecting persons over the age of 55, AMD is an eye condition that damages the macula section of the retina and could cause vision loss. Age may raise the risk for those who have a hereditary inclination toward AMD. When macular degeneration strikes younger than 55-year-olds, it is usually ascribed to either genetic elements or retinal damage from severe myopia, a disorder causing an enlarged retina prone to rupture.

AMD results from an accumulation of drusen, which are deposits of proteins, lipids, and cell trash. Drusen develop either under retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) or beneath the retina and, as their numbers increase, they might start to compromise vision.

Along with many other age-related disorders, AMD can also be caused by a build-up of waste products in the body brought on by reduced cell turnover. Not just to look for AMD, but also for other vision-related diseases connected with older age, such glaucoma and cataracts, Weng advised persons over 50 to have a dilated eye exam at least once a year.

AMD comes in two flavors: moist and dry. Early on with dry AMD, there are no symptoms; nevertheless, as it advances, it can cause blurriness of vision, blind spots, and distortion. Most varieties of dry AMD do not turn into wet AMD.


Less often occurring than dry AMD, wet AMD can advance faster. It does greater damage than the dry variant linked here. When aberrant blood vessels sprout behind the retina, wet AMD results. These blood vessels can hemorrhage and lead to scarring linked with abrupt vision loss.

Both types of AMD can be evaluated and treated by retinal specialists, a subset of ophthalmologists focused on retinal problems.

While some causes of age-related vision loss—such as cataracts—can be treated with a simple surgery, more advanced forms of dry AMD like geographic atrophy (GA), which causes blind spots in the central vision, and some stages of wet AMD may cause vision loss that cannot be reversed or corrected.