Save Your Sight! Read online

  The thirst mechanism isn’t always a reliable measure of when or how much you need to drink, especially in older people. Make drinking plenty of water a habit and stick to it. And by the way, only water counts as water. Soda, juice, coffee, and tea don’t count, nor do alcoholic beverages.

  5. Take nutritional supplements every day, and, as you age, take advantage of natural regeneration therapies.

  Most of you probably take a daily multivitamin that you buy at the supermarket or drugstore.

  The typical drugstore brands contain only the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of the vitamins and minerals. These allowances are for the minimum daily intake required for the prevention of deficiency diseases such as scurvy, pellagra, and rickets. We’re guiding you to clarity, longevity, youthfulness, and better vision, so we want you to do way better than the RDA.

  The environment you live in is constantly pulling on your body’s vitamin resources. For example, stress, air pollution, pesticides, alcohol, and bad food will deplete vitamins. Taking supplements is your way of counteracting the emotional and physical stressors of everyday life.

  You can also self-treat a tremendous variety of ailments safely and effectively with supplements. If you feel yourself coming down with a cold or flu, you can take vitamin C, echinacea, and zinc, and avoid getting sick altogether or shorten the duration and severity of the symptoms. If your joints are aching, you can take glucosamine sulfate. If you’re having muscle spasms at night, you can take a calcium/magnesium supplement before you go to bed. These remedies are safe, gentle, and effective and treat the underlying cause, not the symptom. This is the future of medicine. Jump on the bandwagon now, and you’ll be healthier and happier for it.

  The goal of using natural regeneration therapies is to supplement what is declining in an aging body. Therapies include naturally occurring versions of your body’s own hormones, as well as supplements with proven anti-aging and lifespan-extending effects. These therapies go beyond simple maintenance of good health and can add energetic years to your life. This is where the miracles of science work to augment the miracles of the body.

  The hormones we recommend for our patients include DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone), pregnenolone, progesterone, estrogens, testosterone, melatonin, and human growth hormone. Some of the anti-aging supplements are ubiquinone (also known as coenzyme Q10), ginseng, chromium, selenium, betaine hydrochloride, vitamin E, vitamin A, and magnesium. Although we won’t be covering these hormones and supplements in this book in detail, we recommend you take advantage of the “Recommended Reading” list in Appendix II to find out more.

  6. Make exercise part of your daily renewal.

  You don’t want to go to the gym or take a yoga class? Take a walk. It doesn’t get much simpler than this, does it?

  The human body is beautifully designed for movement. If you deprive it of exercise, it gets stiff and painful. Cholesterol levels, blood pressure, joint health, and emotional health are negatively impacted. As soon as you adopt a mild to moderate exercise program, you’ll notice improved mood and better sleep. It doesn’t take a high-intensity, no-pain-no-gain program; in fact, you’ll be a lot more likely to quit completely if exercise is unpleasant.

  If you can’t walk for an hour, try a half-hour. If a half-hour isn’t manageable, take fifteen minutes. Something is always better than nothing when it comes to exercise. If you can walk for five minutes six times a day, you’re doing enough to gain significant health benefits.

  7. Minimize your exposure to toxins, poisons, and pollutants.

  Any substance that can do damage to your body, and in doing so contributes to the development of pain and illness, fits our definition of toxin, poison, or pollutant.

  We humans have made the sad and tragic mistake of fouling our nest and creating pervasive pollution on the earth. It’s nearly inescapable. The best you can do, short of holing up on an unspoiled desert island or adding a gas mask and latex gloves to your beauty regimen, is to eliminate the major sources of toxins from your life.

  • Don’t smoke.

  • Don’t hang around with people who are smoking.

  • Don’t exercise on heavily trafficked city streets.

  • Do buy organic foods.

  • Do install a water filter in your kitchen faucet.

  • Don’t use pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides (throw away your cans of insect spray and weed killer).

  • Don’t eat highly processed foods. (Here’s a good rule: If you don’t recognize or can’t pronounce an ingredient on the label, leave it on the shelf.)

  • Do avoid over-the-counter and prescription drugs as possible. (See step 8 for details.)

  • Do buy carpets and furniture that are free of fumes.

  8. Beware of drugs.

  Our problems with street drugs in America are nothing compared to our problems with prescription drugs. At least 140,000 people die in hospitals each year from misprescribed prescription drugs, and many hundreds of thousands more are hospitalized. This costs us billions of dollars in health care and causes incalculable damage to people’s lives, and yet it’s all perfectly legal.

  Nobody is more aware than we doctors are that prescription drugs can be lifesavers in some instances. Antibiotics have saved many lives. Painkillers allow suffering people to rest in comfort. But, these days, our guess is that drugs are killing as many people as they’re helping, and they are dramatically reducing the quality of life for millions of others. We assure you they are doing very little to improve your health that can’t be done with less money, fewer side effects, and vastly better results using more down-to-earth remedies.

  Unfortunately, the typical doctor practicing today is under enormous time and energy constraints. He or she has to see more patients than ever before to keep a practice afloat, so it’s much more time-efficient to get a list of symptoms and scribble out a prescription than to address the whole person and the possible root of the illness.

  The bottom line is that your doctor is a human being, not a deity. That prescription he or she’s handing you really may not be necessary. Always ask for a nondrug alternative, and do your own homework.

  Best of all, find a physician or a health care professional such as a chiropractor or naturopathic doctor who will work with you to prevent illness and maintain your health.

  9. Wear good sunglasses whenever you’re out in the midday sun for more than ten to fifteen minutes.

  You’ll discover as you read this book that overexposure to the sun, combined with too few antioxidants and too many toxins, is likely the leading underlying cause of many of our age-related eye diseases. Conscientiously wearing sunglasses that protect your eyes from ultraviolet light can add years of clear vision to your life. You’ll read about sunglasses in detail in Chapter 14.

  Apply the principle of moderation here too, and don’t go to extremes with the sunglasses. While too much sun is destructive, too little isn’t good, either. Sunlight is a nutrient, and your eyes need it just as much as the rest of your body does. Let your eyes have some exposure to the sun every day, preferably in the morning or late afternoon, and wear your sunglasses the rest of the time.

  10. Cultivate fun, balanced healthy relationships with people you love.

  How are your relationships with the people in your life? Are there people you can talk with freely about your thoughts and feelings? Do you have a spouse, a relative, a friend, or even a pet to love and care for?

  Humans by their nature are social and need healthy relationships with others in order to thrive. People who have pets, who volunteer for good causes, and who are in stable, happy marriages live longer and healthier lives than people who are withdrawn, lonely, and depressed. We even have studies showing that volunteering to help others is good for the heart.

  Sometimes it can take a huge effort to get up off the couch or out of bed and “do,” but doing for others is one of the best cures we know for whatever ails you.

  * * *

  IN SHORT…TE
N STEPS TO RESTORING VISION AND VITALITY

  1. Cultivate awareness; have a spiritual practice.

  2. Everything in moderation.

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

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

  5. Take nutritional supplements every day, and, as you age, take advantage of natural regeneration therapies.

  6. Make exercise part of your daily renewal.

  7. Minimize your exposure to toxins, poisons, and pollutants.

  8. Beware of drugs.

  9. Wear good sunglasses whenever you’re out in the midday sun for more than ten to fifteen minutes.

  10. Cultivate fun, balanced, healthy relationships with people you love.

  * * *

  2

  How Your Eyes Work

  The more you understand about how your eyes work and what can go wrong, the better you’ll understand the importance of the nutritional and lifestyle “prescriptions” we’re giving you. But before we take a look at the eyes themselves, let’s get better acquainted with an important biological process that can make all the difference between sharp and fuzzy vision.

  An imbalance between free radicals created by oxidation reactions and the antioxidants that neutralize them is one of the common threads of cause and effect that is woven through all of the major eye diseases and nearly all of the disabilities and diseases we associate with aging. Some researchers go so far as to connect all disease processes directly or indirectly with oxidation.

  Quenching the Fires of Oxidation

  Oxidation reactions occur when oxygen reacts with something in the body or the environment that creates unstable molecules called free radicals. Free radicals bounce around looking for something to latch on to, but unless they latch on to an antioxidant, they’ll make whatever they latch on to unstable in turn, creating a chain reaction.

  For example, a free radical that encounters an unsaturated fat will latch on to it and oxidize it, turning it rancid. A free radical in an apple with a bite out of it will start an oxidation reaction that turns the apple’s flesh brown. If you sprinkle lemon juice, which contains the antioxidant vitamin C, on the apple, it won’t turn brown because the vitamin C will neutralize the free radicals and stop the oxidation process. Free radicals cause many types of cell damage, even to the point of damaging DNA, the cells’ genetic coding system.

  One of your primary sources of free radicals is your own body. For example, your body is always burning fuel (from food) with the aid of oxygen molecules that are brought to all cells by way of the blood vessels. When the oxygen is used, comparable to the burning of fuel in a car, what’s left is a mixture that includes free radicals. Oxidation reactions are happening millions of times a second in your body, but you have a sophisticated array of antioxidants that, in a healthy body, are on the spot to neutralize any excess free radicals.

  The free radicals in your body play some positive roles too. They have important roles as messengers between cells and in enzyme reactions, and the immune system uses them to kill unwanted invaders.

  Your body can make some of these antioxidants (glutathione, melatonin, and coenzyme Q10 are examples), while others are part of the foods you eat (vitamins A, C, E, and selenium are a few of these). Once the antioxidant balances the free radical, it either remains neutral or is reactivated by another antioxidant. The antioxidants all work synergistically, each enhancing and supporting the effects of the other.

  Free radical formation is accelerated by radiation, cigarette smoke, car exhaust, and a wide variety of other environmental toxins such as pesticides, herbicides, and solvents. When we take these substances into our bodies, the extra free radical load can overwhelm our antioxidant defenses.

  Disease and aging begin when there are more free radicals than antioxidants. In an environment filled with toxins, this happens fairly easily. Western lifestyles, with high levels of stress, poor diets of processed foods, and little attention paid to the needs of the body (until something goes wrong), predispose us to this oxidation imbalance. If your diet doesn’t contain all the elements needed to defend against free radical assault, your body will suffer.

  Inflammation and Your Eyes

  If you aren’t getting the right nutrients, eye diseases can result. One of the links between poor nutrition and disease is the inflammatory response.

  Inflammation is a natural process your body uses to heal damaged cells, and it’s intricately connected with the process of free radical damage (oxidation).

  Sometimes, if there are nutritional deficiencies or toxins in the picture, the inflammatory response can get out of control and fluid pressure around the inflammation rises above what it should be. High fluid pressure and other aspects of an out-of-control inflammatory response are harmful to the body’s tissues. A lifetime of poor nutrition and exposure to toxins tips the delicately balanced inflammatory response from health-preserving to health-threatening.

  Think of the allergic response: When hay fever sufferers come into contact with something seemingly as harmless as fresh-cut flowers, they are thrown into sneezing fits, with runny nose and eyes, hives, or perhaps even lung congestion or constriction. That response is inflammatory and is controlled by a very complex system of checks and balances within the systems of the body.

  Another example is arthritis: The joints become chronically inflamed, and connective tissue is destroyed as a result. Our nutritional prescriptions will help keep inflammation at bay.

  Caring for the Eyes Means Caring for the Rest of You

  The good news is that if problems like macular degeneration, cardiovascular disease, cancer, arthritis, and stroke are at least in part caused by free-radical damage and inflammation, it follows that conscientious work towards self-protection against excessive oxidation means self-protection on all fronts. That’s very different from the usual medical approach, where a drug given to cure one illness is likely to bring on another one, for which another drug is given, and so on and on and on. Keep this in mind as you read along.

  Just a Little Bit of Eye Anatomy

  Light rays coming into the eye first pass through the cornea, a dense and curved clear layer. They move in from the cornea through a thick fluid (the aqueous humor) to the eye lens, which is right behind the iris and looks to us like the black circle of the pupil. The light continues to travel through the body of the eye, which is filled with more thick fluid (the vitreous humor). It then strikes the retina, which contains color-vision cells (rods and cones), spatial vision cells (at the fovea), protective pigment such as melanin, and cells that translate light into nerve impulses to be sent to the brain by way of the optic nerve.

  A frontal and three-quarter view of the human eye and the optic nerve, macula, retina, iris, pupil, cornea, lens, and vitreous.

  A side view of the human eye.

  Ultraviolet and Blue Light: What’s Harmful, What’s Helpful

  Light is a nutrient. Without light stimulation, the retina would shrink and become inactive. The same aphorism applies to the eyes as to the muscles, “Use it or lose it.”

  Not only is light what allows us to see the world around us, but it plays other roles in keeping the body in balance. It stimulates the production of certain hormones in the pituitary gland, which activate the adrenal glands on top of the kidneys. Cataracts that are severe enough to block most light from hitting the retina actually cause ankle and foot swelling because the hormonal messengers responsible for maintaining fluid balance in the body don’t get their orders, expressed in the form of light.

  The absence of light stimulates the secretion of the hormone melatonin, which sends the signal to the body that it’s time to sleep. All sorts of regenerative processes happen while you sleep, and it’s important that the quality of that sleep is good. Without the light of day, the internal clock gets thrown off. Melatonin may not be secreted at the right time, and sleep will be poor; this will affect how you feel when you’re a
wake.

  Vitamin D is manufactured in the body when it’s exposed to ultraviolet light. Without vitamin D, calcium metabolism is impaired and bone health suffers. A few minutes of skin exposure to unfiltered sunlight can produce enough vitamin D to last for days or weeks, stored in the liver.

  Ultraviolet (UV) light also can do harm, especially to the eyes. Studies show that UV rays promote cataracts, eyelid skin cancer, snow and sun blindness, abnormal growths on the surface of the eyes called pterygia, macular degeneration, and a form of melanoma that affects the back of the eyes. Since ultraviolet radiation from the sun is a major source of damage to the eyes from oxidation, we’d like you to protect your eyes from the sun, especially as you age.

  No matter what the health of your eyes, we recommend that you invest in a pair of sunglasses that blocks out 100 percent of the UV-A and UV-B sun rays and that filters out at least 85 percent of blue-violet sun rays, and wear them whenever you’ll be out in the sun for more than about fifteen minutes in the middle of the day. If you’re squinting after your eyes have had time to adjust to the sunlight for a while, put on your sunglasses.

  Many of the sunglasses sold are mislabeled. Talk with your eye doctor; he or she may be able to suggest a good local vendor to you. A hat with a brim is also good insurance for the health of your eyes.

  Blue light is part of the visible spectrum. Too much blue light can harm your eyes by dramatically increasing the rate of formation of free radicals. Overexposure to blue light causes harmful deposits in the network of blood vessels feeding the retina. To be protected from retinal damage, choose lenses that filter at least some blue light. When you wear them the sky should appear somewhat grey.

  Sunlight is like everything else in life, best enjoyed in moderation. Because sunlight also nourishes the eyes, I wouldn’t suggest you wear sunglasses at all times unless you have advanced eye disease, but be smart. Enjoy the sunshine but don’t overdo it, and remember to wear your sunglasses when it’s bright. (See also Chapter 14, “Basic Eye Care,” for more information on sunglasses.)