Save Your Sight! Read online

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The information in this book can be a valuable addition to your doctor’s advice, but it is not intended to replace the services of trained health professionals. You should consult your physician or health care professional in matters relating to your health, and in particular regarding symptoms that may require diagnosis or immediate attention.

  Grateful acknowledgment is given to reprint “The Many Disguises of MSG” chart on pages 86–87: Reprinted with permission from Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills by Russell L. Blaylock, M.D., Health Press, Santa Fe, NM, 1994.

  Copyright © 1998 by Marc R. Rose, M.D., Michael R. Rose, M.D., and Virginia Hopkins, M.S.

  All rights reserved.

  Warner Books, Inc., Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  A Time Warner Company

  First eBook Edition: December 2008

  ISBN: 978-0-446-55357-5

  The “Warner Books” name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Book design by Nancy Singer Olaguera

  Text composition by Peng Olaguera

  Illustrations by Tu Pham

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Introduction

  1: Your Eyes Are a Window to Your Health: Ten Steps to Restoring Vision and Vitality

  2: How Your Eyes Work

  3: The Nutritional Care and Feeding of Your Eyes

  4: Preventing and Healing Macular Degeneration

  5: Preventing and Healing Glaucoma

  6: Preventing and Healing Cataracts

  7: Preventing and Healing Diabetic Eye Disease

  8: Preventing and Healing Retinitis Pigmentosa

  9: There Is No Good Nutrition without Good Digestion

  10: Keeping Your Blood Vessels Strong

  11: Are Your Prescription Drugs Making You Go Blind?

  12: Exercise Your Way to Clear Vision

  13: How to Avoid Vision-Destroying Toxins and Cleanse Your Body of Them

  14: Basic Eye Care

  15: Coping with Vision Loss

  Appendix I

  Appendix II

  Appendix III

  YOUR EYES ARE YOUR WINDOW ON THE WORLD. KEEP THEM HEALTHY.

  See better longer when you discover:

  □ How natural regeneration therapies can arrest and sometimes turn the degenerative process around

  □ What to look for in a pair of good-quality sunglasses—and why you should be wearing them

  □ How certain foods, substances, stress, and activities affect your body

  □ What kinds of foods and dietary supplements provide the greatest nutritional benefits for your eyes

  □ Ways to minimize the damaging effects of environmental toxins like cigarette smoke, sun, and pollutants

  . . . and much more.

  SAVE YOUR SIGHT!

  Dedicated to our children,

  Adam, Joanna, Alyssa, Jonathan, Hillary,

  David, Sara, Stephen, Jennifer, and Jerry,

  who have inspired us

  to search more deeply

  for the answers.

  Acknowledgments

  We would like to thank Bill Sardi for his years of research into the intricacies of nutrition and eye diseases, and hence his invaluable contribution to this book. We would also like to thank Virginia Hopkins for her role in helping us envision, write, and edit this book, and Melissa Lowenstein for her expertise in tracking down the latest research and putting it all down on the written page. We owe much appreciation to our editor, Colleen Kapklein, who saw the value of this book and guided us to create a timely and clear work. We are indebted to the courageous and pioneering work of the late Linus Pauling, and to Jonathan Wright, M.D., and Alan Gaby, M.D., for their pioneering work in nutritional therapy in medical practice.

  Introduction

  You Can Keep Your Vision Sharp as You Age

  Macular degeneration is a devastating disease of progressive loss of vision and, for many, eventual blindness. In spite of the fact that it is the leading cause of blindness among older Americans, it has not attracted a lot of research money or media attention until recently. Some twelve million people show the early telltale signs of macular degeneration, and four million people already suffer from loss of vision.

  Why don’t we have an American Macular Degeneration Society, or a department at the National Institutes of Health devoted to a war on macular degeneration? Perhaps the reason is that those who are afflicted by macular degeneration are older, or that loss of vision tends to make people retreat into themselves, rather than stand up and shout for attention. Mainstream medicine has no effective drug or surgical treatment for it, so who wants to talk about that?

  We are both ophthalmologists, medical doctors who specialize in the prevention and healing of diseases of the eyes. To help our patients save their sight, we have also become research scientists, working to understand how the health of the eyes and body are interconnected. Our quest to find answers for our patients suffering from a long list of eye diseases, including glaucoma, cataracts, diabetic eye disease, and retinitis pigmentosa, has led us into the world of alternative medicine. You’ll be amazed at how relatively simple the answers are. There are no magic pills, no exotic new technologies (which we love, but they don’t apply here) or fancy diets that will prevent and stop eye disease. The answers are found in sensible diet, nutritional supplements, exercise, and some important lifestyle choices. And best of all, there are no drug side effects or the risks associated with surgery.

  We have seen hundreds of patients halt the progression of macular degeneration, and dozens actually reverse it. Most doctors don’t yet embrace the kind of nutritional therapies described in this book; we hope that they come around soon.

  Chances are good that you bought this book because you or someone close to you has been diagnosed with eye disease. If you are one of the millions with macular degeneration, your eye doctor most likely has told you there is nothing to be done short of risky laser surgery to slow your loss of vision. We know you are looking for another path to better eye health. We’re glad you’ve found this book.

  We’re going to give you very detailed nutritional guidelines that we have seen prevent, halt, and sometimes even reverse the progress of macular degeneration and other eye diseases related to aging. If you can commit to our Ten Steps to Restoring Vision and Vitality and the nutritional protocol for your eye disease for at least nine months, you can almost certainly improve your vision. At the very least, you can keep it from getting worse.

  Best of all, your vision isn’t the only thing that will get better. The recommendations you’ll find in this book will improve the health of your entire body. What’s good for your eyes is good for all of you.

  It’s never too early or too late to take the steps we recommend. Eye disease and other diseases that afflict aging people begin in your twenties and thirties, and no matter how old you are, your health can always improve.

  1

  Your Eyes Are a Window to Your Health: Ten Steps to Restoring Vision and Vitality

  An eye exam reveals much more than the condition of your eyes. They are a window to the inner workings of your body, and a barometer of how healthy you are. When we look into the eye with a special instrument that allows a view beneath the surface, we can check the blood vessels behind the retina. If they are affected by disease, seen as tiny clots in the capillaries there, it’s probable that blood vessels throughout the body are similarly afflicted. If the optic nerve is pale from lack of blood flow, we can make the same assumption. The effects of high blood cholesterol can be seen in the form of a grey ring around the inside of the c
lear cornea. If the iris is inflamed, it’s a safe bet that there is inflammation elsewhere in the body.

  There are many eye problems that reflect ill health in the body that can often be prevented or stopped in a matter of months with appropriate diet, supplements, and lifestyle changes. These include age spots on the retina known as drusen (an early sign of macular degeneration), ophthalmic migraines (squiggly flashes of light seen in the peripheral vision), Bitot’s spots (on the whites of the eyes), poor night vision, floaters, chronic glare and light sensitivity, eye hemorrhages, cataracts, dry eyes, and macular edema (swelling).

  In many cases, symptoms that crop up in the eyes are the first sign of diseases in other body parts. We often discover signs of diabetes, high blood pressure, blood vessel disease, or autoimmune disorders in the process of examining a patient’s eyes.

  If you have any of the symptoms of eye disease described in this book, please see your eye doctor immediately. The earlier you detect and diagnose eye disease, the easier it is to halt its progression and even reverse it. We recommend yearly eye exams, and if you have any progressive eye disease such as cataracts, macular degeneration, or glaucoma, we recommend checkups every six months.

  Ten Steps to Restoring Vision and Vitality

  It follows that if you take the necessary steps to prevent eye disease or keep it from worsening, your whole body will enjoy the benefits. We’ve boiled the fundamentals of our approach down to Ten Steps to Restoring Vision and Vitality. These ten steps give you a foundation to build on. They provide guidelines that are tried, true, and supported by scientific research as well as our personal experiences with the people in our medical practice. Using the ten steps as a base, you can add our recommendations for specific eye problems found in the rest of the book, and summarized in Appendix I.

  Most of the ten steps won’t be new to you, but we hope they serve to give you a new attitude toward your health. We live by these guidelines, and although they can prove a challenge at first, the way you’ll feel after a few months will make following them all worthwhile. No matter what the state of your health is now, we promise that if you follow these ten steps, your health will improve.

  We want to emphasize, though, that we’re putting the responsibility for your health into your hands. Modern medicine has made us feel as though we must hand over all control of our health to our doctors. We expect a magical elixir or surgery to fix what ails us. Our prescription gives you the tools—physically, emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually—for improving your health every moment of every day. You’re going to enhance your body’s innate ability to resist illness and aging. The best we can do is give you the tools; it’s up to you to put them to use. It’s well worth the effort, and your eyes will show you the difference.

  Our ten secrets to restoring vision and vitality aren’t necessarily in order of importance. Each one has equal weight, and you decide which to incorporate into your life first. Personally, we believe that if you adopt the first two steps, the rest will be much easier. The steps related to diet, nutrition, and exercise will be covered in detail in their own chapters.

  1. Cultivate awareness; have a spiritual practice.

  The first secret to great health is noticing what makes you healthy and what makes you sick. Cultivate awareness by becoming conscious of what you’re doing and thinking. A good place to begin cultivating awareness is with your eating habits.

  You’re probably used to eating whatever is in front of you without much thought. Next time you’re pulling into the drive-through for a burger, think for a moment. First, make certain you’re actually hungry. Often we eat simply because it’s lunchtime or dinnertime, or we have a craving, or we’re bored or procrastinating. If you are indeed hungry, ask yourself whether a glass of cool, clear water and some fruit or a salad might be a better choice. Maybe it’s not, maybe your body could use some protein and fat right now. The point is to be aware of what you’re doing.

  Next time you automatically plop onto the couch, remote in hand, ask yourself whether there’s anything you really want to watch on TV. Would you feel better if you got up and went outdoors? Maybe you do need to vegetate in front of the TV for an hour or two, but consider a walk, a phone call with a loved one, or a good book.

  We believe it’s important to have a spiritual practice that gives you a sense of a higher meaning to life. When you have a sense of purpose, of mission, of meaning in your life, everything you do is enhanced by that point of view. All the better if your spiritual practice includes some form of meditation.

  Meditation can be a wonderful way to bring yourself daily into a place of calm, peace, and balance, which is good for every cell in your body. In fact, even if it’s not a part of your spiritual practice, we recommend you take up some type of meditative practice. It doesn’t have to be sitting still and chanting an inward tone. It could be yoga, Tai Chi, or qi gong, all meditative practices combined with physical movement.

  2. Everything in moderation.

  These ten steps are not about eating only rice and vegetables, or meditating for hours on end, nor are they about ignoring your sugar and fat intake and giving in to the urge to be a couch potato. We’re striving for something more balanced, which we call moderation.

  It’s not easy to live a health-conscious lifestyle in our culture. Friends and family may not understand or accept your new lifestyle. If you must skip a few days of exercise, eat a piece of sugary birthday cake, or sit in a smoky room with dear friends, don’t let it throw you. Simply go back to doing things healthfully. Feeling guilty or angry is counterproductive.

  On the other hand, there are those of you who think that if some lifestyle modification is good, more must be better. These ambitious souls are the ones who start their exercise program with a ten-mile run and resolve to ingest nothing but alfalfa sprouts and vitamin pills. That won’t work, either, because it won’t last.

  What we’re working for here is a long-term healthy lifestyle that is balanced. Ease into these changes. Find out what works best for you. Take one step at a time. Diets and lifestyle changes that are extremely unbalanced inevitably result in imbalance in your body.

  The results of very-low-calorie diets for weight loss provide a good lesson on the wisdom of the body: It thinks you’re in a famine, and slows your metabolism down to compensate. When you begin to eat normally again, your body needs fewer calories and stores the rest as fat. The dieter ends up gaining the weight back plus a couple of extra pounds!

  Moderate exercise enhances immune function (see Chapter 12). Immoderate exercise depresses it. Intense, frequent exercise also greatly increases the rate at which your body produces unstable molecules called free radicals. (See Chapter 2 for more information on free radicals.) What constitutes “immoderation?” That will vary from person to person. Again, notice what makes you tired, what makes you energetic. Develop your own awareness of what moderation means to you.

  3. Enjoy eating a variety of fresh, natural foods and cultivate good digestion.

  Yes, you are what you eat, but you are also how you eat, so we want eating to be fun and enjoyable for you. Let’s skip the yo-yo diets and strict, boring regimens, and find a balance that’s both healthful and delicious.

  When we eat too much food, it often is because we’re not paying attention as we eat. We want you to enjoy every bite. As you eat your food, relish it. Enjoy the flavors, textures, and aromas. Give thanks for such a delicious meal. Take the time to have a leisurely meal. This is nourishment not only for your body but for your soul as well.

  Eat a variety of foods so you’ll get a variety of nutrients and add enjoyment to your meal. Experiment with different ethnic cuisines. Make your plate colorful. Eat red, orange, yellow, and green vegetables. Try steaming, stir frying, baking, and grilling vegetables.

  When we recommend “natural” foods, we mean as close as possible to the way they were designed by Mother Nature:

  • Whole grains

  • Fresh pesticide-free or
ganic fruits and vegetables

  • Meat and dairy products untainted by antibiotics and hormones

  • Fresh fish baked, poached, grilled, or broiled (not fried).

  If you eat fresh, natural foods, chances are your digestion will be good, but as we age, our ability to secrete digestive enzymes and absorb nutrients diminishes. Later, in Chapter 9, we’ll give you a list of supplements to take if your digestion could use some help.

  4. Drink plenty of clean water throughout the day, every day.

  This is pretty easy so far, isn’t it? And how wonderful that something as simple as drinking clean water every day can keep you looking and feeling young and vibrant. We recommend at least six to eight glasses of water a day (eight-ounce glasses).

  If you have any doubt whatsoever that drinking plenty of clean water is one of the healthiest steps you can take, please read the book Your Body’s Many Cries for Water, by F. Batmanghelidj, M.D. He makes a convincing case that we are chronically dehydrated, and that many of our degenerative diseases can be cured simply by drinking more water.

  We do recommend that you invest in a water filter. In the past decade America has developed polluted tap water along with the rest of the world. You need to filter aluminum, heavy metals such as lead, benzenes from petrochemical pollution, chlorine, fluoride, and parasites such as Giardia and cryptosporidium, which aren’t killed by water plant treatment. (You will need a special filter to get rid of fluoride, but if you have arthritis, heart disease, or osteoporosis, it may be worth it. Fluoride is nearly everywhere in our food and water, so what we get in the water supply becomes excessive, contributing to the above chronic diseases. Adults do not need fluoride! We recommend that at the very least you use a non-fluoride toothpaste.)

  When you drink plenty of water you’ll notice that your skin is clearer, you’ll be more “regular,” and you’ll have less appetite for junk food. If you tend to retain water, drinking more may be just what the doctor ordered. Your body, when dehydrated, will retain water so that it can survive what it perceives to be a drought.