The Connection Between Diet And Eye Health

Most patients understand that a diet heavy in fat, salt, sugar, and other unhealthy ingredients negatively impacts overall health. Still, they don’t always realize the direct connection between diet and vision health.
This is why dedicated optometrists care as much about your general health as we do about your eyes and pay close attention to any existing health conditions listed on your intake and successive appointment paperwork. We want to ensure we’re doing all we can to help you make lifestyle choices supporting a healthy body - including your eyes and vision.
Your Eyes Are What You Eat: Diet And Eye Health
While you may be familiar with the idea that diet impacts things like heart health, type 2 diabetes, or the risk of being overweight/obese, you may not realize those same health conditions are linked to common causes of vision loss.
For example, patients with high blood pressure (hypertension) are more likely to develop retinopathy due to reduced circulation to the eye, while patients with diabetes risk progressive vision loss due to diabetic retinopathy. Heart disease and other diet-related health conditions are also responsible for vision issues due to:
The older you are, the more diet plays a role in the connection between diet and eye health.
Vision-Friendly Diet Plans
While every healthy lifestyle choice makes a difference in reducing your risk of disease, diet is certainly the first place to start. Your diet creates a strong foundation for things like having enough energy to exercise or ensuring that what you eat and drink isn’t negatively impacting your ability to get a good night’s sleep.
If you are as dedicated to observing your wellness checks as you are to regular eye exams - and have a clean bill of health - we recommend talking to your doctor about anti-inflammatory diet plans. From there, your healthcare provider or specialist can help you create a customized diet tailored to your current health benchmark and your future goals.
Anti-inflammatory diets help to manage a range of health conditions
Inflammation is a known contributor to - and accelerator of - virtually every disease that can be diagnosed. When you reduce inflammation, you boost your immune system and can slow down the progression of any existing conditions.
Reducing inflammation, which can largely happen via diet, also reduces or eliminates disease symptoms and can also help you reduce medication doses. So, an anti-inflammatory diet focuses on:
- Lean meats
- Lots of vegetables and fruits
- Whole grains
- Foods with balanced omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids
- Minimizing sugar and processed food intake
- Keeping water as the focus of hydration
It also means reducing alcohol intake as well as caffeine and other stimulants, most of which can exacerbate inflammation.
The Johns Hopkins Medicine post "Anti-Inflammatory Diet" provides an excellent overview of inflammation, how it affects the body, its link to common health conditions (including Alzheimer’s and dementia), and the types of foods that fight inflammation.
If weight management is important, discuss the Mediterranean or modified Adkins diet with your physician to see what they recommend. While Keto diets are all the rage right now and can be successful at helping individuals lose weight initially, they aren’t necessarily the healthiest diet for everyone—and rarely for the long term.
Specific foods for diet and eye health
Along with an anti-inflammatory diet, you can also support your eyes and vision health by increasing your intake of foods that contain eye-healthy vitamins and minerals (Vitamins A, E, C & B vitamins, beta carotene, zinc, copper, lutein and zeaxanthin).
Examples of these are:
- Any and all leafy greens
- Citrus fruits
- Carrots
- Sweet potatoes
- Fish (particularly salmon)
- Seeds
- Legumes
If you have an existing eye diagnosis, your optometrist may also recommend specific supplements to provide a higher daily dose of vision-friendly nutrients.
Patients have experienced remarkable improvements by creating an anti-inflammatory diet that works for their palate and health goals.
Diets Specific To Your Condition
If you have an existing condition, your physician or specialist can discuss dietary recommendations supporting disease management. For example, there are diets specific to:
- Diabetes
- Arthritis
- Heart disease
- Alzheimers & dementia
- And so on.
One thing they all have in common is that they’re all considered anti-inflammatory by design.
Build A Healthy Lifestyle Pyramid
If diet is the foundation for optimal eye and vision health, there are other things you can do to continue building that pyramid from the ground up. Once you have your diet routine in place, begin to integrate:
- Regular, moderate exercise for 30 minutes, five days a week.
- Practice stress reduction strategies since stress is not only an inflammatory trigger, but it also sets the stage for junk food comfort binging or sleep disruptions.
- Healthy sleep habits ensure your body benefits from a boosted immune system, healthy metabolism, the ability to heal/regenerate, and hormone balance.
- Spend more time outdoors in nature.
Finally, give yourself the gift of healthcare professionals that you like, trust, and who support you in making the best choices for your health and well-being.
Eye To Eye Family Vision Care Takes A Full-Spectrum Approach To Vision Care
The optometrists and team at Eye to Eye care about more than just eye and vision health. We understand the connection between diet and eye health, so we take a full-spectrum approach to patient care.
In addition to providing information and education about diet choices that support healthy vision for the rest of your life, we’re also happy to collaborate with your doctor or specialists to help you manage health conditions that contribute to vision loss. Contact our office to schedule your eye exam.