Klaris Ingredients: Lutein, Zeaxanthin, Meso-Zeaxanthin, Astaxanthin

1. How we decided what goes in

Two rules govern this formula.

Human trials, not test tubes. Every active in Klaris has been given to people in a published study. Antioxidant assays and animal work inform our thinking; they don’t justify a claim.

Doses that match the studies. The three macular carotenoids in Klaris are at the exact daily amounts used in a twelve-month, placebo-controlled randomised trial - not at token levels chosen to fit a label.

2. The pigment at the centre of your sight

At the centre of your retina sits a small patch called the macula. It handles the detail in the middle of whatever you’re looking at: faces, road signs, the line of text you’re reading now.

Inside the macula is a yellow pigment built from three carotenoids - lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin. Your body cannot manufacture lutein or zeaxanthin. Both have to come from what you eat.

The pigment sits in front of the light-sensing cells, absorbs short-wavelength light before it reaches them, and works as an antioxidant in a tissue that runs at an unusually high metabolic rate.

How much of this pigment a person carries varies widely, and it moves with diet. Klaris supplies all three of these pigments, not just one.

3. Ingredient by ingredient

3.1. The macular carotenoids

Lutein - 10 mg

from marigold flower (Tagetes erecta)

What it does. One of the three pigments that make up the yellow filter at the centre of your retina. Your body cannot make it, so it has to come from what you eat.

What the research showed. In AREDS2, the people who took lutein and zeaxanthin instead of beta-carotene were less likely to have their macular degeneration get worse. Ten years later, the same pattern was still there.

Numbers: AREDS2, 4,203 people, funded by the US National Eye Institute. Report No. 3 (JAMA Ophthalmology, 2014) hazard ratio 0.82, 95% CI 0.69-0.96. Report 28 (JAMA Ophthalmology, 2022), 3,882 followed, hazard ratio 0.85, 95% CI 0.73-0.98.

Studies: AREDS2, JAMA 2013 · AREDS2 Report No. 3 · AREDS2 Report 28

Zeaxanthin - 2 mg

from marigold flower (Tagetes erecta)

What it does. Lutein’s close partner. It sits nearer the dead centre of the retina than lutein does - the part you use to read a face, a price tag or a road sign.

Why 2 mg. It is the AREDS2 amount, paired with 10 mg of lutein exactly as that trial paired them.

What the research showed. Lutein and zeaxanthin were always given together, so the AREDS2 results above are the results for both.

Numbers: AREDS2 (JAMA, 2013) and AREDS2 Report No. 3 (JAMA Ophthalmology, 2014).

Studies: AREDS2, JAMA 2013 · AREDS2 Report No. 3

Meso-zeaxanthin - 10 mg

from marigold extract

What it does. The third pigment in that same filter. There is almost none of it in food - your eye makes it, out of lutein.

Why Klaris uses it. This is where Klaris stops being an AREDS2 copy. Meso-zeaxanthin was not in AREDS2 at all.

Numbers: CREST Report 1 (Nolan et al., Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, 2016), randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled, in adults free of retinal disease. Contrast sensitivity at 6 cycles per degree, P = .004.

Klaris supplies that exact combination: 10 mg / 2 mg / 10 mg.

Studies: CREST Report 1, IOVS 2016 · CREST design paper · Bone 1997 · Shyam 2017, PNAS · Connolly 2011, IOVS

Astaxanthin - 4 mg

from Haematococcus pluvialis algae

What it does. A red pigment from freshwater algae. Unlike the three above it does not build the filter - it is in the formula for the strain that comes from hours of close focus.

Why Klaris uses it. The human research on astaxanthin is about eye comfort and focusing in people who spend the day on screens.

What the research showed. In two small trials in adults with screen-related eye fatigue, the people taking astaxanthin focused more easily and reported less trouble doing it than the people who did not.

Numbers: Nagaki et al. (Journal of Traditional Medicines, 2002), 5 mg a day for four weeks. Kizawa et al. (Journal of Clinical Biochemistry and Nutrition, 2021), 44 adults, randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled.

Studies: Nagaki 2002, Journal of Traditional Medicines 19(5):170-173 · Kizawa 2021

3.2. The antioxidant cofactors

Zinc - 25 mg

as zinc citrate

What it does. A mineral your retina holds in unusually high amounts.

Why 25 mg. Zinc was the mineral in the original AREDS formula, at 80 mg. AREDS2 later tested 25 mg and found people did no differently on it. Twenty-five milligrams also leaves room for the zinc you get from food - the recommended daily ceiling for adults is 40 mg. And zinc citrate is easier on the stomach than the zinc oxide the older formula used.

What the research showed. In the original AREDS trial, the group taking antioxidants plus zinc was less likely to progress to advanced macular degeneration than the group on a dummy capsule.

Numbers: AREDS Report No. 8 (Archives of Ophthalmology, 2001), 3,640 participants, odds ratio 0.72, 99% CI 0.52-0.98. Upper intake level from the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements.

Studies: AREDS Report No. 8 · AREDS2, JAMA 2013 · NIH ODS, Zinc

Copper - 2 mg

as copper citrate

What it does. A safety partner for the zinc rather than an active in its own right.

Why Klaris uses it. Taking zinc every day gets in the way of absorbing copper, and over time that can leave you short of it. The AREDS formula included 2 mg of copper for exactly this reason. Klaris matches that amount.

Studies: NIH ODS, Zinc · National Eye Institute, AREDS/AREDS2 FAQ

Vitamin C - 250 mg

as ascorbic acid

What it does. An antioxidant your eye concentrates harder than almost any other tissue in the body - the fluid at the front of the eye and the lens itself hold 20 to 70 times as much of it as your blood does.

Why 250 mg and not the 500 mg in AREDS. Klaris is a daily maintenance formula for people who do not have advanced eye disease. AREDS used 500 mg, but AREDS was a treatment trial in people already diagnosed with intermediate macular degeneration.

Numbers: Lim et al. (Nutrients, 2020); Iqbal et al. (Acta Pharmacologica Sinica, 1999); Taylor et al. (Current Eye Research, 1991).

Studies: Lim 2020, Nutrients · Iqbal 1999 · Taylor 1991

Vitamin E - 134 mg

as dl-alpha tocopheryl acetate

What it does. The main antioxidant inside cell membranes.

Why Klaris uses it. The light-sensing tips of your retinal cells are more than 65% polyunsaturated fat, which makes them easy to damage. Vitamin E is the antioxidant that protects that particular kind of membrane. 134 mg works out at roughly 297 IU.

Numbers: Edwards et al. (Frontiers in Neuroscience, 2022); Ranard & Erdman (Nutrition Reviews, 2018); NIH Office of Dietary Supplements.

Studies: Edwards 2022, Frontiers in Neuroscience · Ranard & Erdman 2018, Nutrition Reviews · NIH ODS, Vitamin E

3.3. The eye-to-brain B vitamins

Most of what you experience as seeing happens in the brain, not the eye. The signal travels from the retina, down the optic nerve, to the back of your head - and that journey depends on nerve tissue staying healthy.

These three vitamins share one job in that story: they keep homocysteine in check, an amino acid that climbs when any of the three runs short.

Vitamin B6 - 2 mg

as pyridoxal 5’-phosphate

Folate - 400 mcg DFE

as L-5-MTHF, calcium salt

Vitamin B12 - 250 mcg

as methylcobalamin

Why Klaris includes them. People with macular degeneration tend to run higher homocysteine and lower B12 than people without it. In the one randomised trial of these three vitamins given together, the women taking them for around seven years had 34% fewer macular degeneration diagnoses.

On the forms. Klaris uses L-5-MTHF, the form of folate that raises the folate in your red blood cells at least as well as folic acid does. And at 250 mcg of B12, a small share is taken up by simple diffusion - a route that keeps working as you get older, when the usual one often does not.

Numbers: Huang et al. (Scientific Reports, 2015), 11 studies, 1,072 people with AMD vs 1,202 without, homocysteine 2.67 µmol/L higher, 95% CI 1.60-3.74. WAFACS (Christen et al., Archives of Internal Medicine, 2009), 5,442 women over 7.3 years on 2.5 mg folic acid, 50 mg B6 and 1,000 mcg B12 daily, relative risk 0.66, 95% CI 0.47-0.93. Lamers et al. (2006), 144 women, 24 weeks.

Studies: Huang 2015, Scientific Reports · Christen 2009 · Rochtchina 2007 · Gopinath 2013 · Lamers 2006 · Obeid 2015 · NIH ODS, Vitamin B6 · NIH ODS, Vitamin B12

4. What we left out, and why

No beta-carotene. The original AREDS formula contained 15 mg of it. In the AREDS2 ten-year follow-up, the people who had been given beta-carotene had close to double the odds of lung cancer.

The risk sat almost entirely with former smokers: 4.5% of them developed lung cancer, against 2.3% of those who took none. Lutein and zeaxanthin showed no such signal.

Numbers: beta-carotene odds ratio 1.82, 95% CI 1.06-3.12. Lutein and zeaxanthin 1.15, 95% CI 0.79-1.66.

No omega-3. AREDS2 tested 350 mg DHA plus 650 mg EPA against placebo. It did nothing for AMD progression at five years, and nothing at ten.

Numbers: hazard ratio 0.97, 98.7% CI 0.82-1.16 at five years; 1.01 at ten.

We left it out rather than charge you for a null result.

Studies: AREDS2 Report 28 · AREDS2, JAMA 2013