Food and Your Eyes: About 250 million people around the world have mild to serious vision loss. Did you know that the health of your eyes is directly connected to the health of your heart and blood vessels?  What you eat and drink can have a lasting impact on both your cardiovascular health and your vision.

Bread and Pasta: Researchers have linked simple carbohydrates, like those found in white bread and pasta, with a higher chance of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), a leading cause of vision loss for older adults. The reason: Your body digests this type of carb quickly. This causes a spike in blood sugar. To prevent this, health experts suggest that you swap white bread and pasta for whole-grain versions.

Processed Meats: Hot dogs, bacon, and deli meats are loaded with sodium. This salt spike can eventually lead to high blood pressure (hypertension). In your eyes, this may cause:

• Hypertensive retinopathy, blood vessel damage that causes blurred vision or vision loss
• Choroidopathy, a buildup of fluid beneath the retina
• Neuropathy, a blockage of blood flow that kills nerves and causes vision loss
• Try to limit your sodium to 2,300 milligrams or less a day.

Fried Foods: Deep-fried foods cooked in trans fats raise your LDL (“bad”) cholesterol levels and could lead to heart disease, stroke, and type 2 diabetes. They also create molecules called free radicals that can damage and kill cells. This all connects to eye disease -- AMD and diabetic retinopathy. Fight back against free radicals by eating fruits and veggies full of vitamin C like citrus fruits, tomatoes, and red bell peppers.

Cooking Oils: A landmark study 30 years ago linked too much linoleic acid, a type of unsaturated fat, with a higher chance of AMD. You can find it in these cooking oils:

• Safflower
• Sunflower
• Corn
• Soybean
• Sesame

Health experts suggest cooking oils with less than 4 grams of saturated fat per tablespoon. Stay away from ones with hydrogenated oils and Trans fats.

Margarine: It’s made with vegetable oils, so it has unsaturated “good” fats. All things considered, it may be better for you than butter. But some margarine also has trans fat, which raises your cholesterol levels and the chance of heart disease and eye problems. The more solid the margarine, the more trans-fat it has. Instead of a stick, use the spread or liquid kind. You can also look for brands with 0 grams of trans fat on the label.

Media Contact:
Sarah Rose
Journal Manager Journal of Eye Diseases and Disorders
Email: eyedisorders@emedsci.com
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