4 Ways Optimized Nutrition Can Help You Improve Your Ocular Health

What you eat has a direct impact on your health — and that includes your eye health. Let’s explore four ocular wellness benefits you can reap if you get the right nutrients on a regular basis.

You already know that what you eat impacts your overall wellness. You’ve probably even thought about how your diet impacts the function of certain parts of your body, like your heart or skin.

A healthy diet delivers benefits to another specific body part that’s less talked about, too. Optimized nutrition helps to improve your ocular health. In fact, the American Optometric Association specifically recommends getting certain nutrients to support your eye health today and prevent problems in the future.

From keeping your eyes comfortable and clear to avoiding conditions that often develop with age, a healthy diet makes a big difference. That’s why Edwin Y. Endo, OD & Associates and our team provide nutrition counseling at our office in Aiea, Hawaii.

Let’s take a closer look at 4 benefits you can reap from optimizing your nutrition to support your eye health.

1. Sharper eyesight

Certain nutrients help your eyes to function at their best, supporting your visual acuity. Specifically, the antioxidants lutein and zeaxanthin are known to help you see your clearest.

2. Defense against damage

Your retinas play a critical role in your ability to see, as they collect visual information by focusing light and sending that information to your brain. Because they’re such an important part of your eyes, you want to protect your retinas. And nutrients like zinc — along with antioxidants like zeaxanthin and lutein — help to defend the retinas against damage.

3. Comfortable eyes

A moist eye is a comfortable eye. What you eat can help to keep the right level of moisture in your eyes so you can avoid redness and scratchiness.

Omega-3 fats help to improve the quality of your tears, for example, while beta-carotene supports moisture in your cornea, the outermost layer of your eye.

4. Eyesight protection as you age

Through the years, a wide variety of ocular conditions can interfere with your ability to see. But what you eat gives you a way to lower your risk of certain eye issues.

For example, all of the following nutrients defend against cataracts and age-related macular degeneration:

Lutein
Zeaxanthin
Vitamin E

Zinc and beta-carotene also reduce your risk for AMD and can help slow its progression if you do get it.

The trick, clearly, is getting these nutrients through either foods you eat or vitamins you take. We can help here. Dr. Endo and our team offer personalized nutrition counseling that helps you incorporate foods that are richest in nutrients that support eye health. We can also recommend any necessary supplementation.

To get started with good eye health and nutrition counseling here at our office, call us or book an appointment online.