AOA 2024: AOA names poster on Blink NutriTears one of top 5 presented in 2024

A poster on Blink NutriTears given this year was recently listed as American Optometric Association's (AOA) Top 5 Posters of 2024. With the nutritional supplement for dry eyes recently launched commercially by Bausch + Lomb, Neda Gioia, OD, CNS, FOWNS, gives an overview of the significant findings from studies observing NutriTears' efficacy.

Video transcript

Editor's note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jordana Joy:

Hi everyone, I'm here today with Neda Gioia, founder of Integrative Vision and president of the Ocular Wellness and Nutrition Society, to chat about her presentation entitled, "Clinical Evaluation of a Multi-Ingredient Oral Supplement on Dry Eye Symptoms and Tear Volume," that was honored as AOA's top 5 posters of 2024. So welcome. It's a pleasure to have you today.

Neda Gioia, OD, CNS, FOWNS:

Thank you so much for having me highlight this poster. It's a big honor to have it as the top 5 for 2024. But it really just underscores the value of what we can do for clinicians.

Joy:

To first get us started off, would you be able to give an overview of this paper and your presentation?

Gioia:

Absolutely. As we have been taught timelessly with dry eye, it's a multifactorial condition. And we really have to start thinking about addressing the underlying pathophysiology of dry eye syndrome. And with oral supplementation, this particular poster really emphasizes how we can kind of expand our definition of an oral supplement to support the body and ultimately the dry eye issue that the patient is having. So what's nice about the poster [is it] really highlights that study and it's really clinically significant. It was a prospective, randomized, double-blind, parallel, placebo-controlled study. It had a mixture of male to female subjects aged within a large range of 18 to 65. And they had clinically diagnosed dry eye syndrome. And the NutriTear supplement that was given really showed statistical significance in improving their symptomology as well as their tear volume.

Joy:

Absolutely. It's all important findings there. So how do you anticipate that these findings will impact the future of dry treatment and how this advances that treatment?

Gioia:

That's a great question. As I said before, I think 1 big point here is that we can expand our definition of how we can help our patients with supplementation. So improving tear volume and patient experience of dry eye with something that actually gives us some scientific evidence is really profound. And you know, we need to start expanding our toolbox, I call it, for dry eye syndrome and having that view in the supplement side is actually important for clinicians, because we do need those options for our patients.

Joy:

Absolutely. So who would be the ideal patient to suggest this supplement to as a treatment option, given these findings?

Gioia:

Well that's one, again, nice thing about the study and studies — there was actually an earlier study in India — the subject age is very large range, as I said, it was 18 to 65 with a pretty split up male to female percentage. The ultimate patient that was within the study was mild to moderate dry eye, which is a lot of patients. So expanding into severe dry eye is something that I do think it's going to go into as well. But that hits many of your general clinical patients, I would say at this time and age, with electronic usage with increased inflammation that we see in patients. So it really expands it to a large audience.

Joy:

For sure, absolutely. So Blink NutriTears was just recently launched in the US. So does this shine a different light of how really important these findings were or treating patients, you know, from the chair, what that may look like in assuring them that, you know, supplements are an important part of this treatment.

Gioia:

Yeah, and I also am very big on educating what the supplement is and knowing a little bit of the background of the supplement, especially when you are going to recommend or prescribe it clinically, and NutriTears is a 670 milligrams soft gel. But what's key is that it has some unique components that we don't oftentimes see in eyecare: 200 milligrams of curcuminoids, 20 milligrams of lutein, and four milligrams of zeaxanthin, which we see more commonly, but also in addition to that, 1.5 milligrams of D3, which basically translates to 600 IUs. What's key is the synergy between all these components, as well as the micronization of curcumin in the marigold extract. That actually improves something called bioavailability and that is by enhancing the surface area. So I think if doctors understand why it's effective too, there there's value there in terms of how to prescribe and why to prescribe. So it is pretty exciting that it's accessible and doctors can start prescribing it now and start testing it on their patients.

Joy:

Absolutely, it's all very important. How can optometrists best educate their patients on the role that nutrition plays in dry eye management, if this is something that maybe isn't as commonly known within patients?
Yeah, and I like to always look like a bird's eye view of symptoms of ocular disease, ocular health issues. The general systemic health of the patient is always important. And that always translates to nutrient status, nutrition, and knowing that supporting nutrient levels in patients ultimately help ocular conditions. I don't think that that's actually very new in terms of what we know. But it's nice to have studies that support that philosophy, and maybe more specific studies that show how it connects to certain symptomologies that the patient has; for example, what we're talking about here is dry eye syndrome. It really emphasizes looking at the whole body versus just the ocular part that the doctor wants to address.

Joy:

Absolutely. So is there anything else that you wanted to touch on that we haven't gotten to yet.

Gioia:

I actually wanted to just highlight the 2 primary endpoints so that some of the clinicians out there can kind of get a quick synopsis. One: it improved the tear volume versus placebo as early as day 28 with statistical significance; that's using the Schirmer test. And number two, it significantly improved the dry eye symptomology that was addressed by the OSDI scores and that was as early as 2 weeks. And it continued to maintain this improvement throughout day 56 with again, statistical significance. So I think we want to emphasize too that from 2 weeks, you can offer an adjunct to other therapies or standalone with the Blink NutriTears supplement.

Joy:

Absolutely. Well, it was a pleasure chatting with you, Dr. Gioia and congratulations on being 1 of the top 5 posters through the AOA this year.

Gioia:

Thank you, very exciting times.