Vegetables
Fighting Blindness:
Eye Nutrition Research Summary ©
*The Nurses Health Study
*Seddon-Harvard Study
*Stuart Richer
*Billy Hammond
Next, specific research on antioxidants is listed , followed by research color by color, and a summary of conclusions and recommendations by the experts.
*Women with the highest intake of lutein and zeaxanthin had a 22% lower risk of cataract extraction.
This was the first widely reprinted study that reached both the scientific community and the general public with evidence that eating vegetables lowered the risk of macular degeneration: People who ate the highest amounts of carotenoid rich vegetables lowered their risk of macular degeneration 43%, compared to those who ate the least. Specifically, eating even as little as one-half cup of spinach or collard greens weekly made a difference.
*Excerpt: Opthalmologist Dr. Johanna Seddon, leader of the reseach team in the 1994 Harvard research team--
"What I tell
my patients is… the best thing is to eat a variety of vegetables."
Stuart Richer, O.D., Ph.D.,chief of the optometry section at the Department of Veterans Affairs in North Chicago is one of the most prominent authorities on nutrition and vision, having conducted ongoing research on Age-Related Macular Degeneration (ARMD) for over ten years, with about 30 published articles.
*“In a telephone interview about the study, Dr. Richer said that ‘he believes he has made the first documented reversal of ARMD. [Participants] showed improvement in 60-80% of tests. Seven out of eight patients had central distortion or holes in their vision which improved or disappeared completely.’"
Billy Hammond, a Professor of Neuroscience at Arizona State University in Phoenix, is one of the most prominent and widely quoted researchers to have reached conclusions similar to Dr. Richer. He found macular pigment density, represented by lutein and zexanthin declines directly with age, but can be significantly increased by eating corn and spinach.
*One study examined the eyes of a group of elderly people, subjects showing the least evidence of macular degeneration were those with the densest retina pigment. According to Professor Hammond, “'They might have been 80 years old, but they had the retinas of 20-year-olds’.”
In 1997, Professor Hammond teamed up with D. Max Snodderly Ph.D. of Schepens Eye Research Institute at Harvard University, and Billy R. Wooten of Brown University to publish a report that received international attention in a Press Release and story issued by the Schepens Institute. Titled Improved Nutrition Could Help Prevent Vision Loss. It can be read in its entirety at:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1998/02/980210092405.htm.
* Here’s a quote from it:“Improved nutrition could help to retard the loss of visual sensitivity with age. Perhaps the gradual loss of vision in many older people is not an inevitable consequence of the aging process.”
* A Survey of PubMed database, developed at the National Institutes of Health, showed 341 scientific studies supporting the efficacy of plant antioxidants on Macular Degeneration and Cataracts.
* Study looked at the relationship between blood levels of antioxidants and the risk of ARMD.Those with the highest blood level of antioxidant carotenes had one-third the risk compared to those with the lowest levels.
* "'The problem is, if you take too much of one antioxidant, the others shut down. It's best to get them through foods like fruits and vegetables, where they exist in the proportions nature intended'." Statement by Richard Cutter, former research chemist at the Gerontology Research Center of the National Institute on Aging.
*"They discovered that eating a mere carrot a day-or any other beta-carotene rich fruit or vegetable-cut the odds of macular degeneration by 40 percent compared with eating such foods less than once a week.”
*lutein and cryptoxanthin were associated with a 70% lower risk of cataracts.
*beta-carotene without lutein may actually induce or accelerate retinal disease.
*"Beta-carotene teams up with lutein and zeaxanthin...to prevent or slow the onset of age-related macular degeneration."
* Re: nutritional strategy for retinitis pigmentosa."Eat both lutein-rich food and beta-carotene-rich food."
Orange and Red
* "Each antioxidant does a different thing, but together they produce a powerful synergy.You simply cannot rely on one and feel you've covered all your bases.
The antioxidant quenching ability of beta-carotene and lycopene is dependent on dietary intake of both carotenoids."
Green
*Eating lots of dark green, leafy vegetables helps protect the visual center of the eye from free radical damage and can reduce our risk for developing macular degeneration.
The leaves of green vegetables are rich in folate, a B vitamin considered to be the most important nutrient for correcting myopia.
Red/Lycopene, and lycopene and beta-carotene
*“the real protector against ARMD was the red pigment, lycopene.”
*Lycopene may be the most efficient biological carotenoid singlet-oxygen quencher and ...."was found to be much more potent than beta-carotene in quenching singlet-oxygen, one type of free radical. " However, this study concluded that the “antioxidant quenching ability” of both lycopene and beta-carotene is dependent on dietary intake of both of them.
Purple, Blue and Blue/Red
*In Europe and elsewhere outside the U.S., during the 1960’s numerous studies were published on the effectiveness of pigment anthocyanins in a variety of eye problems The studies were precipitated by the well-known accounts of World War II Royal Air Force pilots who ate blue-purple jam prior to night missions in order to improve night vision.
*We have referenced 17 of these studies, none of which were originally published in English, following up with studies from the 1980’s and 1990’s.
*1980’s: In one study, anthocyanosides from bilberry, plus vitamin E, stopped the progression of cataract formation in 97% of patients tested.
*In the 1990’s American nutritionists concerned with vision generally accepted that the anthocyanins found in blueberries, and grapes and other blue-purple fruits and vegetables had an unusually powerful effect in protecting vision.
*Based on a sample of 3,000 men over the age of 45, wine drinkers were 19% less likely to develop AMD. The beneficial effects are most likely from the grape pigments, not the alcohol.
*A study based on experiments with seven adults, found that red grape juice may be just as effective as red wine for increasing antioxidant capacity in the blood.
Beyond Green. Seeing yellow, orange, red and purple.
* "Our study demonstrated that consumption of fruits and vegetables of various colors would increase dietary intake of lutein and zeaxanthin, and showed that the options are not limited to dark green leafy vegetables, which were previously recommended."
*"The results of the study...showed that only the diets high in mixed carotenoids showed an increased immune response vs. free-radical induced changes."