Tag Archives: eye

Nutrition and Eye Health

Infographic credit: https://www.focusclinics.com/blog/dont-turn-blind-eye-superfoods/

There are many reasons to maintain good nutrition and a regular exercise routine. It can help you manage your weight, lower your blood pressure and cholesterol, prevent disease, reduce the risk of cancer, improve mental health and well-being, and keep you fighting fit and feeling younger for longer. But what many people don’t realize is that good diet and exercise can also help with overall eye health and to keep your vision sharp.

Almost everything we do with our bodies (what we put in and what we put out) affects our eyesight and eye health, so ensuring that we eat healthily and exercise regularly is essential.

The Importance of Nutrition

Foods that can boost your eye health include fish and other things rich in omega-3 fatty acids, leafy greens and pigmented veggies packed with lutein and zeaxanthin, whole grains with a low glycemic index (GI), citrus fruits and berries with vitamin C, and any foods that contain vitamin E, zinc and niacin.

A healthy diet also helps you manage your weight, which prevents eye complications that can be caused by type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Don’t Dismiss Superfoods

Eating a well-rounded diet with lots of fruits and vegetables, proteins and good fats is the best way of ensuring good vision for the long term. But it’s also important to pay special attention to some of the ‘superfoods’ that are out there.

Whilst kale may have become a popular smoothie ingredient due to today’s health trends, it really is much more than just a trend.

This infographic above shows the damaging effects of blue light and reveals the top 10 vegetables to help protect your eyes from blue light macular damage. The listed veggies are all packed with high levels of lutein and zeaxanthin. These are both carotenoids that can help to keep the eye’s macula healthy.

The infographic not only reveals the vegetables with the highest levels of carotenoids (with kale, cress, spinach and peas ranking at the top), but it also references a recent Harvard University which revealed data to show that lutein and zeaxanthin rich diets could prevent the risk of macular degeneration by up to 40%.