Forty percent of Americans worry more about losing their eyesight than their ability to walk or hear, according to the American Optometric Association’s annual American Eye-Q survey. AOA conducts Save Your Vision Month annually in March to help people preserve vision throughout their lifetime.

“It’s easy to incorporate steps into your daily routine to ensure healthy eyes and vision,” says Dr. Mitchell T. Munson, president of the AOA. “Eating right, protecting against UV rays and visiting your local eye doctor on a yearly basis are just a few things that can help keep your eyes and vision strong.”

Consider these five steps for a lifetime of eye health:

1. Schedule yearly comprehensive exams
Eye care should begin early in life. The AOA urges parents to bring infants 6 to 12 months of age to their local optometrist for a thorough assessment. Comprehensive exams performed by an optometrist not only evaluate a patient’s vision, but can also detect certain serious health problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

2. Protect against UV rays
Long-term exposure to the sun poses significant risk not just to your skin, but to your eyes as well. No matter what the season, it’s extremely important to wear sunglasses, choosing a pair that blocks more than 95 percent of UVA and more than 99 percent of UVB radiation. The AOA provides more information and tips for selection of sunglasses at www.aoa.org.

3. Give your eyes a break from digital device use
Two-thirds of Americans spend up to seven hours a day using computers or other digital devices such as tablets and smart phones. This constant eye activity increases the risk for computer vision syndrome (CVS) and can cause problems such as dry eye, eyestrain, headaches, neck and/or backache, and fatigue. The AOA recommends that people practice the 20/20/20 rule (every 20 minutes, take a 20 second break and look at something 20 feet away).

In addition, a poorly designed computer station can also contribute to eyestrain. Be sure to correct factors such as improper lighting or uncomfortable seating, viewing angles and reading or working distances to eliminate visual stress and discomfort. The AOA website provides a helpful diagram on how to set up your desktop computer/laptop.

4. Eat your greens
As part of a healthful diet, eat five servings of fruits and vegetables each day – particularly the leafy green variety. Six nutrients – antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin, essential fatty acids, vitamins C and E, and the mineral zinc – have been identified as helping to protect eyesight and promote eye health. Since the body doesn’t make these nutrients naturally, it’s important that they are incorporated into a daily diet and, in some cases, supplemented with vitamins.

5. Practice safe wear and care of contact lenses
More than 40 million Americans use contact lenses to improve vision. While some adhere to the medical guidelines for wearing contacts, many are breaking the rules and putting their vision at risk. Contact lens wearers who don’t follow their optometrist’s recommendations for use and wear can experience symptoms such as blurred or fuzzy vision, red or irritated eyes, pain in and around the eyes or, a more serious condition in which the cornea becomes inflamed, also known as keratitis. For more information, visit www.contactlenssafety.org.

To learn more about eye and vision health, or to find a nearby doctor of optometry, please visit www.aoa.org. To find out how AOA members donate their services to help Americans save their sight through its charitable programs, visit the Optometry Cares-The AOA Foundation website.

The post Five tips for a lifetime of healthy vision first appeared on The How Do Gardener.

Experts recommend that disease prevention, including lifestyle modification, attention to dietary intake and vitamin supplementation must become a greater focus of primary vision care. Studies indicate that proper nutrition promotes healthy eyes, however many American diets are found to be deficient of the critical nutrients that help protect eye health.

“If people are at risk for heart disease they typically make lifestyle modifications,” says Dr. Jeffrey Anshel, president of the Ocular Nutrition Society. “This survey found that people are as concerned about their eyes but do not know the simple steps they can incorporate into their daily lives to take care of them.”

* Vitamin supplements can be used for your eyes, too
While people take a variety of different supplements to support their health, vitamins specifically formulated to help protect the eyes are often not in the mix – and for many people, they should be. While more than half of those surveyed are taking supplements to protect their joints, bones or heart health only 18 percent say they take supplements to support their eye health.

“As we grow older, the need for certain vitamins and nutrients to support the eye increases – the survey revealed low awareness of these essential nutrients,” says Anshel of nutrients like omega-3 fatty acids, lutein and zeaxanthin. He adds that there is a “need for greater education on the lifestyle modifications that baby boomers can incorporate into their daily lives, including proper nutrition, to help safeguard eye health as they age.”

To help protect eye health as they age, Anshel recommends people aged 45-65 take the following steps:

* Stop smoking, exercise regularly and wear sunglasses with UV protection
* Make an annual appointment with an eye doctor
* Eat foods rich in eye healthy nutrients, such as tuna or salmon for omega-3s and spinach, kale and broccoli containing lutein and zeaxanthin
* To help overcome shortfalls in the diet consider a vitamin supplement specifically-formulated for eye health

To learn more about the Eye on the Boomer survey as well as eye health, please visit ocularnutritionsociety.org.

The post Baby Boomers: Don't Forget to Care for Your Eyes as You Age first appeared on The How Do Gardener.

For older adults, bright lights, glare while driving at night and even blindness can dramatically affect quality of life, but the treatment isn’t just glasses or a stronger prescription – it’s also nutrition and supplementation.

Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness for Americans older than 60, according to the American Optometric Association. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates 7.3 million people are at substantial risk for vision loss from AMD. Other estimates indicate that as our population continues to rapidly age, as many as one in three could be diagnosed with AMD in the next 20 years.

AMD deteriorates central vision, affecting everything from seeing faces clearly to literally having no central vision at all. Key risk factors for AMD are age, family history, smoking (past or present), low macular pigment, light skin and eyes, obesity and Caucasian women are also at slightly higher risk.

Macular Pigment Optical Density (MPOD) is a brief, non-intrusive exam performed by many optometrists throughout the country, which measures macular pigment in the back of the eye.

Think of macular pigment as “internal sunglasses” for the back of your eye – they absorb harmful blue light that can adversely affect eye health. Internal sunglasses protect the photoreceptors in the back of the eye – specifically the cones, which are responsible for central vision, color, sharpness and sensitivity to bright light, among others. Two key carotenoids, Zeaxanthin (zee-uh-zan-thin) and Lutein, comprise the internal sunglasses, which can become thin as we age, unable to block or absorb harmful blue light. In order to keep the internal sunglasses thick and dense, it is important to replenish Zeaxanthin, the predominant carotenoid in the area where the concentration of cones is the highest.

Zeaxanthin is very scarce in the average daily diet, and vegetables like kale, corn, collard greens, spinach, and peppers naturally provide nutrients to help maintain macular health, but supplementation is often necessary. For example, one would have to eat approximately 20 ears of corn to get a recommended dosage of 8 to 10 milligrams of natural dietary Zeaxanthin per day.

Supplements like the EyePromise brand of eye vitamins help rebuild macular pigment through unique nutritional formulas that feature the highest levels of all natural Zeaxanthin, derived from paprika. In addition to protection, Zeaxanthin and Lutein can improve visual performance, reduce glare issues and sensitivity to bright light, as well as improve color intensity and contrast sensitivity.

“Too often we concentrate our diets on weight, blood sugar, cholesterol and blood pressure, but ignore one of the most important organs in our bodies – our eyes,” says Dr. Dennis Giehart, founder of Zeavision. “An abundance of science has found low macular pigment puts people at risk for AMD, and increasing Zeaxanthin in the diet can help improve macular pigment for improved visual performance.”

Vision shouldn’t be something you take for granted as you age. Take care of your eyes with proper nutrition and supplementation if necessary, and ask your eye care professional about having your macular pigment measured to maintain your central vision.

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