According to the CDC, the average rate of obesity has steadily increased in the United States. Obesity, characterized as having a BMI score of 30 and above, can correlate with and cause many health issues for patients. This includes heart failure, diabetes, and cancer. This study will specifically focus on Age-Related Macular Degeneration, an eye condition with possible connections with obesity.

In Age-Related Macular Degeneration, the eyesight is blurred or obscured; it's a condition common among the elderly and can be affected by many factors including biological like sex and age and environmental such as smoking habits and diet. There's been signifigant research tied between AMD and carotenoids such as lutein; the higher the intake of lutein, the lower the risk of developing AMD. Lutein is specifically found in vegetables and leafy greens such as spinach and kale. But as obesity rates and unhealthy eating habits increase annually, is there a danger of raising the risk of developing AMD? 

Age-Related Macular Degeneration, or AMD, is a medical condition of the eye that affects millions Americans today. Influenced by many factors, your diet–specifically whats in your diet, can affect your risk to developing this condition. As the years go by, rates of obesity continue to grow in America. It's important that research regarding AMD prevention stays relevant, especially as factors and variables continue to change with time. It's essential for current and future generations to have a direction to look towards when it comes to preventing damage to eye health.

Alexandria Toalston

toalsale000@stu.sumnersd.org

My hypothesis is that the lutein in the diet of the residents of Bonney Lake-Sumner city districts will show signs of a higher risk of developing AMD than the previous average of Americans.

Carotenoids - any of various usually yellow to red pigments found widely in plants and animals and characterized chemically by a long aliphatic polyene chain composed of eight isoprene units (Merrium-Webster).

Age-Related Macular Degeneration - macular degeneration that affects the elderly in either a slowly progressing form marked especially by the accumulation of yellow deposits in and thinning of the macula or in a rapidly progressing form marked by scarring produced by bleeding and fluid leakage below the macula (Merrium-Webster).

Food Frequency Questionnaire - consists of a finite list of foods and beverages with response categories to indicate usual frequency of consumption over the time period queried to obtain frequency and, in some cases, portion size information about food and beverage consumption over a specified period of time, typically the past month or year (National Cancer Institute).

The proposed method of data gathering on the risk of developing AMD based off lutein intake in diets will be through a Food Frequency Questionnaire on the residents of the Bonney Lake-Sumner city districts. This data and analysis will be compared to previous studies researching the risk of developing AMD in Americans. 

Carotenoids

AMD

How Diet Affects AMD