Eye Health

In addition to eye exercise

2006-08-30T04:35:00.000-07:00

Preventing macular degeneration

Article by Vision for life

Walking down the street one day, you notice that the telephone pole in front of you is looking rather odd. Instead of standing upright as it ought to, it looks, well - wavy. You glance around at the side of the building next to you, and it, too, is not its usual straight self.

Don’t worry, you’re not going nuts! But you may be one of 13 million Americans who have a common, age-related eye disease called macular degeneration.

Macular degeneration, often called AMD or ARMD (for age-related macular degeneration), is the leading cause of vision loss and legal blindness in Americans age 65 and older,
according to the eye-health organization Prevent Blindness America. The macula is the part of the retina we use for reading, driving, recognizing faces, watching television, and fine work: in short, it is the region of maximum visual acuity. The exact causes of AMD are still unknown, but risk factors include:

Age - the risk increases with age.

Cigarette smoking

A family history of macular degeneration

Excessive exposure to sunlight

High blood pressure and/or cardiovascular disease

Being female and/or Caucasian - these groups tend to get the disease more than their counterparts.

Vision loss usually occurs gradually and typically affects both eyes at different rates. How do you know if you have AMD? If straight lines look wavy, as mentioned above, or there are shadowy areas or dark or empty spots in your central vision,
you may be experiencing early signs of the disease.

There are two forms of age-related macular degeneration: "wet" and "dry." Most patients have the dry form, which may result from the aging and thinning of macular tissue, or disturbances in its pigmentation. In the wet form, new blood vessels grow
beneath the retina and leak blood and fluid, which causes retinal cells to die and creates blind spots in central vision. The formation of blood vessels and deposits known as "drusen" from blood vessels in and under the macular is often the first physical sign that AMD may develop. The "wet" form accounts for 90 percent of all cases of legal blindness in macular degeneration patients.

While there is no cure for AMD, there are five steps you can take to lower your risk or slow down the progression of dry AMD.

1. Don’t smoke. Smoking is a powerful risk factor for loss of vision with AMD. In fact, one study showed that smoking more than doubles the risk of AMD. This study also found that AMD is more than twice as common in people who smoke
more than a pack of cigarettes a day, compared with people who do not smoke.

2. Wear sunglasses. UV protection may play an important role in preventing AMD. Beginning at a young age, begin protecting the eyes from UV light. Look for sunglasses that afford 100% UV protection or prescription eyewear with the same. A brimmed hat offers extra protection to shade the eyes when you are outdoors.

3. Care for your cardiovascular system. Recently published data shows that people with uncontrolled hypertension were approximately three times as likely to develop the wet, or more severe, type of macular degeneration, compared to those without hypertension. Regular cardiovascular activity, such as walking or biking, may reduce the rate of progression to advanced AMD by as much as 25 percent.

4. As Mom always said, eat your fruits and vegetables! Studies have shown that a diet rich in dark, leafy green vegetables will help decrease an individual’s risk of developing AMD and/or help delay progression of the disease once it has begun. A recent study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health found that individuals who
had the highest consumption of vegetables rich in carotenoids, especially lutein and zeaxanthin, had a 43% lower risk of developing AMD than those who ate these foods the least.

Vegetables that are rich in these two carotenoids include raw spinach, kale, and collard greens. A new study also shows that people who eat three or more servings peray of fruit have a 36 percent lower risk of AMD compared to those who ate less than one-and-a-half servings per day. If an intermediate degree of AMD has already developed, or an advanced degree of AMD has developed in one eye, studies indicate that dietary supplementation with vitamins E and C, beta-carotene, zinc and copper may help to delay progression of the disease. (Always consult your doctor before taking any supplements.)

5. Limit dietary fat. Before you reach for that pint of Ben & Jerry’s Wavy Gravy, consider that high fat intake is associated with an increased risk of AMD. A study published in the August 2001 issue of Archives of Ophthalmology found that consumption of omega-3 fatty acids, which are particularly prevalent in cold-water fish, had a protective effect against advanced macular degeneration. Meanwhile, consumption of omega-6 fatty acids, prevalent in vegetable oils, was associated with an increased risk. But go nuts for nuts! Eating one serving a day of any type of nut, according to AgingEye Times, reduces the risk of progression of AMD by 40 percent.

Of course, regular eye exams are key to preventing vision loss. Although AMD appears to be hereditary in some families but not in others, if you have a family history of the disease, it pays to be on the alert. If you are 65 or older, you should get a complete eye exam every one or two years, even if you have no problem seeing well.

Tags: Eye health, Macular degeneration, Vision

Beginning of better eye health

2006-08-23T02:48:00.000-07:00

Improve your vision naturally with eye exercise

The human body has some magnificent restorative powers built in. Regardless of how your body is hurt or worn, it will always do it's best to heal itself. This inbuilt system can be improved upon by eating correctly, exercising etc. A part of our body that sees much abuse, without getting very much attention, are our eyes. Their health too can be improved by proper use and regular exercise.

Since we use our eye all day long, we seldom stop to think that we would need to DO something with them in order to keep them in great shape.

From our first day at school throughout our life as grown ups we get to do close vision work like reading and staring at computer monitors. Then in our spare time we do very much the same thing - reading books, watching television and playing video games. Our eyes are constantly stimulated and looking at some nearby objects almost all the time.

This is a problem, because our eyes are not really designed to constantly focus on something right in front of our noses - or in other words, we use hard vision using mostly the center of our vision.

A stone-age human being, whose biological and genetic composition would be quite identical to our own, would probably have spent large part of the day using soft, or peripheral vision, looking into the distance and viewing birds, trees, mountains, cloud formations, stars, animals to hunt etc.

In our day and age we can naturally not be expected to live and act like people of the stone-age, but the fact remains that lots of close vision work like reading, if done incorrectly, over time greatly reduces our ability to see distant objects. Now wonder then that nearsightedness, or myopia, have become more of a rule than an exception.

Most people just accept this condition as a fact of life, and think that it can only be remedied by wearing corrective lenses or undergoing laser surgery.

However, as was already hinted, many common vision problems are more or less self inflicted. And the impact of various close vision activities could be greatly reduced by reeducating the way you use your eyes.

Furthermore, conditions like nearsightedness can actually be reversed by regularly performing some rather simple exercises that involves relaxing the eyes and re-training them to focus on object further away.

Are eyesight is one of our absolutely most important senses - without it our life would drastically change - so wouldn't you say it is about time we started showing our eyes the same consideration we give some of the cosmetically appealing parts of our body?

Tags:Eye health, Health, Eyeglasses

Eye health and glasses

2006-08-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

The truth about glasses and eye health

When we start to loose our eyesight most of us turns to glasses or contact, in order to have the vision we need or, in some cases, are required to have.

This rather expensive solution has long been the standard solution for poor eyesight. But did you know that the use of glasses might actually make your vision worse over time?

Some highly respected doctors have stated the following about the continued use of glasses and contacts:

"Minus lenses are the most common approach, yet the least likely to prevent further myopic (nearsighted) progression. Unfortunately, they increase the near-point stress that is associated with progression."
B. May, OEP Publications

"The emphasis on compensatory lenses has posed a problem for many years in our examinations. These lenses do not correct anything and may not serve the patient in his best interests over a period of time."
CJ. Forkiortis, OEP Curriculum

"Single-vision minus lenses for full-time use produce accommodative insufficiency associated with additional symptoms until the patient gets used to the lens. This is usually accompanied by a further increase in myopia and the cycle begins anew."
M.H. Birnbaum, Review of Optometry.

Now, glasses are a great fix for many people, but the fact is they are a crutch. Glasses do not repair your vision. They simply put a band-aid over the condition.

Have you ever gone in for an eye-exam and had the doctor say: "great news, your vision improved another 2 diopters. Looks like you need a lower prescription."

I didn't think so!

Glasses are a "prescription," and like any prescription drug, they can be abused. You must learn howto use your glasses as a tool to help rehabilitate your eyesight, rather than continue to contribute to its deterioration.

The most natural way to heed this advice is simply to use your glasses only when you really need them. Although this is a simple tip for, I think you will actually find it rather useful for improving your general eye health.

Tags: Eye health, Healthcare

Eye Health

2006-08-21T07:18:00.000-07:00

GoodMonday everyone!

This blog will focus on the subject of eye health, more specifically on ways to improve your vision in a natural way without expensive and dangerous surgery.

You might be surprised to learn that most common eye disorders, like near- or far sightedness can be remedied quite effectively by simply doing some daily, simple exercises for your eyes. The same applies to most vision problems connected to aging.

Check back soon, and I should have had the time to write some proper articles about eye health.

See you then!