About the Authors

Yuan Tian

Affiliation University Eye Clinic, Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Aize Kijlstra

Affiliation University Eye Clinic, Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Rob L. P. van der Veen

Affiliation University Eye Clinic, Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Maria Makridaki

Affiliation Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Ian J. Murray

Affiliation Faculty of Life Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom

Tos T. J. M. Berendschot

t.berendschot@maastrichtuniversity.nl

Affiliation University Eye Clinic, Maastricht, Maastricht, The Netherlands

Competing Interests

This study was sponsored by the Landelijke Stichting voor Blinden en Slechtzienden, the Stichting Nederlands Oogheelkundig Onderzoek, the Macula Degeneratie Fonds and Cognis GmbH. Cognis was a company who made and marketed lutein. They funded the study and prepared the lutein and placebo supplements. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The commercial funder does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: AK IM TB. Performed the experiments: YT RvdV MM. Analyzed the data: YT AK TB. Wrote the manuscript: YT AK TB.