Nutrition. Vitamins. You.
Many animals have a reflector behind their eye that reflects light back through their retina, magnifying the amount of light, so they can see well at night. Humans don’t have this but there are two berries – Bilberry and Cassis berry – that have been shown to support eye health, including night vision.
In today’s world, screen time takes up most of our day. Overtime, this can create potential damage to our eyes from the blue light, the fatigue and strain within the eye muscles. The good news is that there are some nutrients that can be beneficial to your eyes.
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Today we are going to discuss the strong connections between eye health and memory. So, I am going to try to inspire you to eat right – eat your spinach! Spinach, like many other green, leafy vegetables supplies a wide variety of vitamin-like nutrients, like invigorate your eye health and memory functions! It’s a little, yellow-orange pigment called Lutein!
What is Lutein?
Lutein is a member of the carotnoid family. Caratinoids are a group of pigments in plants that are extremely important for our health. Sources of lutein include kale, spinach, collard greens and romaine lettuce.
Lutein converts to an important pigment called Zeaxanthin that is very important for vision. In parts of the eyes, they are the only carinoids that are accepted. Zeaxanthin is also found in the same vegetables as lutein but is found in many orange-colored foods like tangeries, oranges and orange peppers.
Lutein and Zeaxanthin are very important protectors of the eyes and the brain, due to their antioxidant properties. This helps protect them from inflammation.
Impact of Technology On Sleep
Now, in today’s digital world it seems like you can not escape your screens! Screens use technology that shows a brighter, clear image like LED lights. These lights emit a great amount of blue light. This blue light can impact the amount of nutrients in your eyes, specifically Lutein and Zeaxanthin. This can impact your brain health and impacts your body’s release of melatonin. Melatonin is the nighttime hormone that allows your body to know when it is time to go to sleep.
A recent study in a group of young health people, shows that screen usage disrupts both melatonin release, which leads to a decrease in quality and quantity of sleep.
Link Between Lutein and Brain Health, Specifically Memory
Lutein, in many studies, has been shown to provide benefits for the function of your brain, for attention span and focus, for obtaining information and your mood and memory.
A young, healthy brain creates 700 new, healthy memory cells everyday. Which may not sound like much, but by the time you are 50 years old, you’ve replaced all of the original memory cells that you were born with and developed in your youth.
In a study on infants, Lutein made up 55% of the total carotinoid content of their brain, which is needed for the growth of brain tissue and to develop nerve tissue. More on that when we come back tomorrow!
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Today, we are living in a digital world where escaping your screen can seem impossible. Here are some concerns you need to know about regarding your vision.
New research reports that blue light damages cells in the brain as well as retinas.To the researchers surprise, results also showed that light accelerated aging.
A 14-year old boy in the UK went to his doctor and explained that he was tired. He was a “fussy eater” but was otherwise healthy and was not on any medication. He had a normal BMI and height, and no visible signs of malnutrition. Initial tests showed he was anemic (macrocytic anemia) and had low vitamin B12 levels, which were treated with B12 injections and dietary advice. So why is it that, one year later, hearing loss and vision symptoms had developed?
Published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, University of Bristol researchers set out to examine the case. By age 17, the patient’s vision had progressively worsened, to the point of blindness. Further investigation found the patient had vitamin B12 deficiency, low copper and selenium levels, a high zinc level, and markedly reduced vitamin D level and bone mineral density. “Since starting secondary school, the patient had consumed a limited and poor diet of chips, crisps, white bread, and some processed pork. By the time the patient’s condition was diagnosed, the patient had permanently impaired vision.”
Researchers concluded that the patients “junk food diet” and limited intake of nutritional vitamins and minerals resulted in the onset of nutritional optic neuropathy (NON). NON is a dysfunction of the optic nerve resulting from improper dietary content of certain nutrients essential for the normal functioning of the nerve fibers.
Dr Denize Atan, the study’s lead author and Consultant Senior Lecturer in Ophthalmology at Bristol Medical School and Clinical Lead for Neuro-ophthalmology at Bristol Eye Hospital, said: “Our vision has such an impact on quality of life, education, employment, social interactions, and mental health. This case highlights the impact of diet on visual and physical health, and the fact that calorie intake and BMI are not reliable indicators of nutritional status.”
Today, about half of all American adults have one or more chronic diseases, often related to poor diet. Dietary guidelines released by the USDA provides oversight into creating healthy eating patterns to maintain health and reduce the risk of disease. Here is a general overview of the guidelines. To view the full guidelines, please click here.
To take your core base of nutrition to the next level, speak with an InVite® certified nutritionists about the vitamins and supplements you should be adding to your diet. The first that may be recommended is a superior Multivitamin.
We live in an increasingly polluted environment, loaded with toxins; the soil we grow our food in is often nutrient-depleted and many consume processed, factory-made foods supplying scant nutrients. Ironically, our bodies wind up requiring even more vitamins and minerals to effectively metabolize nutrient-depleted foods. Add that depletion with less time spent outdoors, minimal exercise, prescription drugs and medications, and chronic stress, and the result is that many individuals are truly nutritionally deficient. For these reasons, healthcare professionals are advising their patients to start taking a safe, reliably-made, high-quality multivitamin mineral formula on a daily basis to fill the nutritional deficits in their diet.