03/06/2025
Glaucoma is a disease that gradually damages the optic nerve and can lead to vision loss or blindness. Typically, it’s treated by lowering eye pressure through drops, laser, or surgery, but these treatments don’t always work well for everyone. Scientists have long suspected that homocysteine, a natural substance in the body, might play a role in glaucoma, but new research shows that homocysteine is actually just a bystander, not a cause of the disease.
Researchers at Karolinska Institutet studied rats with glaucoma and found that raising their homocysteine levels didn’t make the disease worse. They also found no link between homocysteine levels and disease progression in people. Instead, they discovered that glaucoma disrupts how the retina uses certain vitamins, slowing down its metabolism. This led them to test whether supplementing vitamins B6, B9, B12, and choline could protect the optic nerve.
In animal tests, the vitamin mix stopped optic nerve damage in mice with slower-progressing glaucoma and slowed it in rats with more aggressive disease—all without lowering eye pressure. This suggests these vitamins work differently from traditional treatments.