How Eating the Right Foods Can Help Protect Your Vision

You know that what you eat affects your well-being, but have you thought about how it impacts your eye health, specifically? To protect your vision, add these foods to your diet.

When you think about things your eye doctor will do to help you, you probably imagine them testing your vision and checking your eyes for certain conditions. You might picture them fitting you for glasses or contacts, too. But you probably don’t immediately assume they’ll talk to you about what you eat.

Actually, though, they should. In the same way that your diet plays a direct role in your overall health, what you eat impacts your vision. That’s why here at Edwin Y. Endo, OD & Associates in Aiea, Hawaii, our team offers good health and nutrition counseling. This gives us a way to ensure you’re getting the nutrients your eyes need, like zinc and vitamins A, C, and E.

At your next appointment, we can talk with you about what you usually eat and make recommendations to protect your eyes. For now, though, let’s walk through some general recommendations to better understand why they matter.

Your diet and your eyes

Researchers increasingly think that diets with ample amounts of specific nutrients can help to prevent or slow eye conditions like macular degeneration. In other words, what you eat can help you see better through the years.

Zinc and vitamin A work together in your eye, for example, protecting the pigment there to help avoid things like difficulty seeing at night. Similarly, phytochemicals like lutein and zeaxanthin — which you can get from leafy greens, yellow and orange fruits and veggies, and egg yolks — help to defend your eyes against problems that develop over time, like cataracts and macular degeneration.

Ultimately, when it comes to your eye health, what you eat matters. Here at our office, our team talks with you about your typical diet. That way, we can recommend specific foods to add that could help preserve your ability to see clearly.

Top foods for vision protection

Fortunately, a lot of the best foods for your eyes are also great for your overall health. These foods contain high levels of the nutrients your body needs to keep your eyes working at their best:

Almonds
Brightly colored produce like:

Broccoli
Carrots
Corn
Persimmons
Red bell peppers
Sweet potatoes
Strawberries

Chia seeds
Chickpeas
Citrus
Dark, leafy greens like kale and spinach
Eggs
Fish, including salmon, tuna, and trout
Flaxseed
Oysters
Peanut butter
Sunflower seeds
Walnuts

If you’re struggling to get enough of these foods into your diet, we can help. We offer MaxiVision® tabs, a multi-nutritional supplement designed to give your body what it needs to safeguard your vision. We also offer LipoiCare PL tabs that provide antioxidants to protect your eyes against damage.

You know that what you eat affects your health — and that includes your eyes. To talk to our experts about what your body needs for great vision, call our office or book your visit online today.