Vision Nutrition

The prerequisite for vision health is vision nutrition, which builds healthy eye muscles, nerves, and blood vessels—the components of healthy eyes and perfect vision.

Self-healing is your own personal responsibility, just as Hippocrates, the father of medicine, once said: "Your food should be your medicine, and your medicine should be your food." Make food your medicine. Heal your eye problems and improve your vision with diet and nutrition. Vision nutrition is your best preventive medicine against any chronic eye problem.

It can prevent any eye disorder.

It can reverse any disorder you may already have developed.

It can preserve and protect your remaining vision for the rest of your life.

Vision nutrition is your resource in self-healing. Prevention is always better than cure.

Antioxidants to Fight Free Radicals

Vision nutrition is the most powerful weapon against free radicals, which are involved in the development of virtually all eye disorders, including cataracts, retinal disease, macular degeneration, and glaucoma, in the cellular level.

 Free Radicals Damage Your Vision

Antioxidants are powerful scavengers of free radicals in your body. They are substances in foods that disarm free radicals. Antioxidants include beta-carotene, coenzyme Q10, and vitamins A, C, and E.

The fluid that fills the front of your eye (known as aqueous) has one of the highest levels of vitamin C in your body. The retina at the back of your eye requires a good supply of antioxidant nutrients from your bloodstream.

Unfortunately, as you continue to age, your body produces fewer anti-oxidants, resulting in less protection of your eyes from oxidation.

In addition, the strong UV rays from the sun can burn or “oxidize” the retinal cells at the back you eyes, leading to loss of central vision. But lack of sunlight over many years can also destroy your retinal cells.

Foods to Fight Free Radicals

Foods that are rich in antioxidants are scavengers of free radicals.

Chlorella is an alga containing high levels of chlorophyll (the green substance in plants). It is one of the purest and most potent foods on earth. Chlorella is a powerful detoxification agent against heavy metals and chemicals in your body. It not only breaks down persistent hydrocarbon and metallic toxins, such as mercury, cadmium, lead, DDT, and PCE, that you may have ingested in your body, but also strengthens your immune system.

Eat several raw garlic cloves a day to fight free radicals. Overcome the odor by chewing some fresh parsley.

A standard dosage of garlic is 900 mg daily of a garlic extract standardized to contain 1.3 percent alliin, the potent ingredient in garlic.

Eat anti-aging foods high in vitamin C and bioflavonoids, such as apricots, berries, black currants, cherries, grapes, grapefruit, lemons, and plums, to prevent broken blood vessels and new blood vessel growth in the eye.

Vitamin C does not stay in your body for long, so you need to replenish it constantly in order to reap its benefits.

Load up on carrots for vitamin A. Carrots contain a carotenoid (a pigment in plants and animals that provides red and yellow color) called beta-carotene. Your body converts beta-carotene into vitamin A, which is a potent anti-oxidant for eye health and healthy vision. Eat carrots, and you will have eyes of an eagle.

Protect the interior of your eyes from the sun with lutein (the primary carotenoid located in the center of the retina, called the macula) and zeaxanthin through supplements, or foods rich in lutein and zeaxanthin such as collard greens, Brussels sprouts, kale, green peas, pumpkin seeds, corn, green pepper, and spinach.

Cigarette smoking reduces the eye’s production of lutein and zeaxanthin, which are pigments of the retina for filtering out harmful blue rays that thicken the macular pigment.

One cup of raw spinach contains about 18 mg. of lutein, one cup of cooked broccoli contains about 3 mg., and one cup of sliced green pepper around 1 mg. They are all anti-aging foods for vision health.

According to The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), 5 servings of spinach per week may reduce macular degeneration by more than 50 percent.

Take magnesium to aid blood flow to the eye for oxygen and nutrients.

Consume cold-water fish and fish oils for omega-3 essential oils, as well as vitamins A and D, which aid in the production of protective pigments in the eye. Eating tuna may significantly reduce your dry eye symptoms.

Take zinc to help release vitamin A from your liver to help healthy vision.

Improve your night vision with bilberries, a cousin to blueberries, grown in the forest meadows of Europe, western Asia, and the northern Rocky Mountains. Bilberry is an herbal remedy that may have a very positive impact on night vision by fortifying blood vessel walls, thereby improving blood flow to the blood vessels in your eyes. Bilberry may help prevent macular degeneration and cataracts. Its original use traces back to World War II when British pilots found that eating jam made from bilberries helped them improve their night vision.

Eat more protein (plant protein from beans) to reduce the development of cataracts, which make your eye’s natural lens cloudy, according to a French scientific study.

Supplement your diet with vitamin E from nuts to improve your healthy vision.

Stephen Lau

Copyright© by Stephen Lau