Saving your Sight

How To Avoid Preventable Vision Loss.

A lot of vision loss is preventable and lifestyle choices play an important role in that. Nobody should smoke! We should definitely wear sunglasses when we go outside, eat well, exercise regularly, and it is a really good idea to get your eyes checked regularly – at least every 2 years, but if you are over 50 have them checked every year. Remember, just because you might have one eye condition does not mean you won’t get something else. In many cases secondary issues such as Macula Oedema, Cataracts, elevated eye pressures and other retinal issues can often occur in patients diagnosed with a degenerative retinal disorder.

Two-thirds of cataracts are caused by things we can modify. 65% of cataract progression is environmental, such as;

Exposure to ultraviolet light,
Not getting enough exercise, and
Poorly controlled diabetes almost doubles the chances of developing a cataract.
If you smoke, your risk of cataract goes up to almost double.
Heart disease is another risk factor. People who have heart disease or who have had heart attacks have a higher risk of getting cataracts as well.
People who regularly do some intense exercise halve the risk of cataract formation. That is, exercise that leaves you short of breath. If you can still talk easily that doesn’t count – so gardening or a gentle stroll is not enough.
Sunshine is not very good for your eyes; protect your eyes from damaging UV sunlight by wearing decent sunglasses with UV light protection.

The most common reason for being registered with the Blind Foundation in New Zealand is Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD). AMD causes a progressive central vision loss, but you don’t necessarily notice this with AMD because your brain is very clever. What happens is that when you see something the brain scans around and fills in the gaps, so people with AMD don’t think they have a big spot in the middle of their vision, they see the outlines but no detail.

AMD is very common. Regrettably, a chunk of AMD is genetic. It does run in families and when it comes to prevention it is a bit tricky to change your parents!

Smoking gives a four-times greater risk of AMD and a 10-times greater risk of going blind if people continue to smoke once they have been diagnosed with AMD.
The vast majority of people with AMD have dry AMD where the retina at the back of the eye slowly fades away
Wet AMD is worse - you get new blood vessels growing under the retina causing blurred vision. In the early days, most people with wet AMD ended up blind within about three months, but now we can do something about it with injections into the eye to stop new blood vessels growing and stop the bleeding under the retina.
Diet is important and lutein from green leafy vegetables like broccoli, spinach and kale seem to make a difference The macula is the most metabolically active tissue in the body. It uses the most nutrients relative to any other tissue in the body and with that, it can wear itself out quite quickly sometimes.
Although it is hard to determine diet in retrospect, studies have found that people who ate oily fish, like salmon or tuna, once or twice a week had a lower rate of AMD.
Multivitamins had varying effects, but for people already diagnosed with AMD an eye-specific multivitamin is probably a good idea, but is unfunded and costs about $1.50 a day.
The best remedy was exercise (based on regression analysis). People who exercise regularly have somewhere between a 10 to 20% reduction in the incidence of macular degeneration.
So a prescription of prolonged healthy eating and regular exercise seems like an obvious answer doesn’t it?

Glaucoma is a group of diseases characterised by the loss of peripheral vision and left untreated results in complete blackness. It is caused by high pressure in the eye; as this pressure rises it seems to damage the nerve that connects the retina to the brain. Glaucoma isn’t really preventable but it is important to discover it, which means;

regular eye tests – at least every two years
If you are over 50, you should possibly get checked every year.
Once you get to 65 years of age you should have your eyes checked once a year, probably every six months.

There are a few risk factors for getting glaucoma:

people of African or Caribbean descent are three times more likely to get glaucoma.
Trauma to the eye increases the risk,
diabetes slightly increases the risk too
whereas exercise does seem to reduce the risk and progression of glaucoma.

Diabetes causes a lot of grief and it’s going to get bigger as it becomes more common. New Zealand has passed Australia, and we’re now the second fattest country in the world. They predict that 40% of adults over the age of 40 will be diabetic in the next 10 years, which is going to place an enormous burden on healthcare.

Diabetes causes a problem because every time your blood sugar goes high it damages tiny blood capillaries all over the body, particularly in the eyes and in the kidneys and the nerves. The problem with the eyes is that once those capillaries get damaged you start growing new blood vessels, which leak fluid and affect the macular and the central part of your vision.

The first goal would be to avoid diabetes in the first place by controlling your weight and avoiding food with a high glycemic index such as crisps, sweets, chocolate, white bread, and processed foods. Once you’ve got diabetes it is super important that you get your eyes checked regularly.