help your eyes this Christmas

This Christmas when you are planning your meals, or enjoying them, think about how they are affecting your eyes. Don't leave it until New Years Day to start eating healthy because you can be naughty and nice!

We frequently take our eyes for granted, but these are highly specialised organs that require careful maintenance to operate at their optimal capacity. While eye tests and vision correction
products play key roles In this process, the foods we eat can also be greatly beneficial.

Studies around the world have emphasised that a healthy lifestyle combined with healthy eating can reduce the prevalence of cataracts, while carbohydrate-high, vitamin-low diets directly increase this risk.

Similarly, a carefully balanced diet helps to counteract age-related macular degeneration, or AMD. This is the leading cause of registered blindness in the western world, but can be halted and even partly reversed through prompt diagnosis and positive lifestyle choices. Research has established that obesity can double the risk of developing some common causes of blindness, including AMD. Although our retinas naturally weaken over time excess body weight can dramatically speed up the onset of AMD, giving us yet another reason to consider what we eat and how it might affect our bodies.

For many years, the focus on diet and its impact on our vision have concentrated on vitamins A, C and E. Numerous scientific studies and clinical trials have shown that these three ingredients help to maintain healthy cells and tissues in our eyes, even assisting with our tear functions and reducing the symptoms of dry eyes. Should your diet not lend itself to a regular intake of fresh produce, nutritional supplements can top up many missing vitamins and minerals although use of these supplements should ideally be approved by your GP.

So when you have the turkey add lots of vegetables to the mix and start protecting your eyes now!