Before you buy lutein supplements to support eye health or improve your vision, you might want to consider something else. A single-ingredient lutein supplement might be beneficial to the eyes, but a recent study indicates that it is your total blood level of carotenoids that is most important.

Carotenoids are a family of pigments found throughout the plant and animal world. Lutein supplements provide only one of them. Others that we should be interested in are zeaxanthin, Astaxanthin, lycopene, beta-carotene and alpha-carotene. All of these pigments have antioxidant activity in the human body. Most of them are found in the pigments of the retina. It’s just that lutein and zeaxanthin are the most highly concentrated in the retina.

Beta-carotene is converted to vitamin A. Without vitamin A, we suffer from night blindness and if the deficiency is severe, we can become totally blind.

Why would someone recommend a single-ingredient lutein supplement? If it was your doctor, he or she is probably unaware of the latest studies. If it was on television or in another advertisement, then of course, the promoters are trying to sell a lutein supplement.

There were several earlier studies indicating that lutein, alone, or in combination with zeaxanthin reduced the risk of blindness in patients that suffered from age-related macular degeneration. One study was conducted by an ophthalmologist, who advised her patients to eat a serving of spinach or kale every day. That was probably effective, because the vegetables provide a wider mix of carotenoids.

Large scale studies have not supported the benefit of zeaxanthin and lutein supplements. The latest study was a comparison of blood levels of various antioxidants in people that did and did not have age-related macular degeneration. That’s where they found that total blood levels of carotenoids had a protective effect against the disease, because people with high levels did not have it. But, there’s another important consideration.

A lutein supplement or any other kind of vitamin may be synthetic. You might want to read that again. It is shocking to most people to think that their vitamins are basically plastic. How could they possibly be of benefit to the human body? It just doesn’t make sense.

Many commercial lutein supplements, especially the cheaper ones, are synthetic. Most of the beta-carotene on the market is, too. When it comes to Astaxanthin, a less common antioxidant that has been used to “treat” age-related macular degeneration, nearly all commercial Astaxanthin is produced synthetically from petrochemical sources. That’s according to ALGA technologies, one of the few wholesalers of natural Astaxanthin.

There is much concern about introducing synthetic chemicals into our body on a daily basis, especially where it concerns a lutein supplement or other nutrient. People take multi-vitamins and similar products because they have been told that they are good for their health. But, the source of petrochemicals is petroleum or crude oil. It just doesn’t seem logical to put that into your body.

So, spread the word about lutein supplements and tell all of your friends to buy natural. It just makes sense.