September 18, 2007

Healthy Eyes - Eating Right for the Eyes

September 18, 2007

An essential part of eye care is eating the right foods that contain the right vitamins to help keep the eyes health. There are a lot of eye diseases and eating the proper foods can lower the risk of these diseases.

Healthy Eyes - Antioxidants
Antioxidants help prevent many diseases affecting not only the heart, immune system, cancer but also the eyes. Antioxidants include Vitamin C, Vitamin E, and Vitamin A. These antioxidants can help prevent Age-Related Macular Degeneration, cataracts, and other eye diseases. Good sources of antioxidants are found in fruits and vegetables, with the highly pigmented ones having a higher concentration. So when picking fruits and vegetables notice the color and chose the ones with more color to them. Concentrations of antioxidants are more abundant in raw form and are loss through the cooking, canning, drying, and freezing. Obtaining too much of these antioxidants will also cause different negative effects, so it is a must to be watchful of amounts taken.

Antioxidants - Vitamin A for healthy eyes

Vitamin A is an antioxidant found in foods made from animals which includes liver and eggs and in fruits and vegetables like carrots and spinach. Most types of milk are also fortified with vitamin A. Vitamin A is essential to proper functioning of the retina. It also helps prevent night blindness by helping the eye to adapt between bright light and darkness. Vitamin A also helps reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and the forming of cataracts. With AMD and cataracts being the leading causes of visual impairment and with the number of people to be affected increasing, getting a good amount of Vitamin A is essential to the eye's health and beauty.

Antioxidants - Vitamin C
Vitamin C does it all. It strengthens your bones and muscles, keeps our immune system in good shape, keeps our teeth and gums healthy, reduces the risk of many diseases and it is no surprise that it is essential to keeping the eyes healthy. Vitamin C is another antioxidant that also helps reduce the risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and the forming of cataracts. Vitamin C, as we all know, cannot only be found in citrus fruits and of course orange juice, but also green peppers, strawberries, broccoli, and sweet potatoes.

Antioxidants - Vitamin E
Vitamin E is another antioxidant that does it all. Consuming a rich amount of Vitamin E helps prevent or reduce the risk of Alzheimer's Disease, coronary heart disease, and help protect against different types of cancers. For eye care, Vitamin E has been associated with the prevention of cataracts and the delaying of cataract growth. The best sources of Vitamin E are nuts, green leafy vegetables, and fortified products such as cereal.

Minerals - Selenium and Zinc
Selenium and Zinc are two key minerals that help the oxidation process. They help the body absorb antioxidants and getting daily values of these minerals help antioxidants in the prevention of eye diseases. Zinc can be found in cheese, yogurt, red meat, pork, and certain fortified cereals. Selenium can be found in walnuts, enriched breads and rice, and macaroni and cheese. As with antioxidants, getting too much of these minerals can cause problems.

Eating the right foods is essential to healthy eyes. These antioxidants and minerals can help keep our eyes stay healthy.

4 comments:

Joy-Joy said...

well, let's be friends :D are you an eye doctor?

Sugar said...

Thanks for being my Friend :) im not a Doctor. But i do care bout vision problem ;)

Always support me. Train everyday n write ur Testimonial here my Friend :)

Bryan Anthony the First said...

i like making friends...

Sugar said...

Thanks :)

Do ur exercise everyday.