How to Protect your Eyes
9th October 2007
By Warren Matthews
My
father in law is 91 years of age. He has enjoyed good health most of
his life up until he was about 80 and even since then it has been
pretty good compared to most. No doubt a factor in his good health has
been due to him being a keen gardener and up until recently grew all
his own organic vegetables.
BUT, about a year ago his eyesight started to fail, and he is now blind!
Pretty traumatic going into a world of darkness after 90 years of
light! He can no longer read, watch TV and of course he cannot drive
any more. As a result his quality of life has taken a dramatic downturn
and he says he is now ready to ‘move on’ as he feels he has had a good
life and has no regrets. It’s likely that this will not be to far away
as once the will to live goes, the body starts shutting down and that
is happening to him now.
I often reflect on his situation and in particular his blindness.
Could it have been prevented? Knowing what I know now I can confident
that the answer to this is yes. Unfortunately, when my son and I
founded Xtend-Life eight years ago my knowledge about these things was
pretty minimal.
My father in law was also being prescribed a number of drugs back
then by his Doctor but I was not knowledgeable enough at that time to
debate the merits or otherwise of what he was taking. I do know that
some of the drugs had potential interactions with our Total Balance and
as such he never got to experience the benefits that this supplement
could have given him.
I have since learnt that the long term side effects of the drugs may
have been one of the contributors to his current state of blindness.
Hindsight of course is a wonderful thing but it often only comes with
knowledge accumulated in the intervening period. For example,
prescription drugs killed my Mother at 89…but…that is another story and
one which I could have prevented had I known some years before she died
what I know now.
It is of course too late to help my Mum or my father in law, or
indeed if I go further back to before my Dad died, I could include him
as well. But, it is not to late to help other people who are at a stage
in their lives where these degenerative diseases are still latent and
can be kept latent…IF, appropriate steps are taken early enough.
Because I don’t want to turn this article into a book I will just
focus the rest of it on the eyes because this is what prompted the
article in the first place.
It’s not to late for most of us!
Most of us take our eyesight for granted, until it starts to fail.
Like a rolling stone down a hill once it starts to roll it gathers
momentum! The same principles apply to degenerative diseases…once they
are diagnosed they are hard to stop, but they can often be slowed down.
The key though is to try and stop it getting to the point that they are
advanced enough to be diagnosed.
Remember that just because you have not been diagnosed with a
particular ailment such as cancer or an eye disease does not mean that
you don’t have it. In fact, cancers are within all of us to a lesser or
greater degree.
Your eyes are in a constant state of degeneration. The rate at which
that takes place is dependent upon the amount of ammunition your body
has to fight the degeneration. In our younger years there is usually
enough basic ammunition to keep the rate of degeneration quite slow.
But, as the years move on not only is the intake of nutrients
(ammunition) reduced, but also the UPTAKE of these nutrients is greatly
reduced by less effective digestive systems and lack of essential
enzymes.
Evidence of this is in the amount of eye diseases present in the population. Consider these facts:
- 45 million people worldwide are blind; 135 million have impaired vision. (American Academy of Ophthalmology, AAO).
- Every
5 seconds 1 person goes blind; 1 child goes blind every minute (AAO).
More than 1.5 million of these are due to various nutritional
deficiencies, or unnecessary infections.
- Unless preventative action is taken 100 million people will lose their sight unnecessarily by 2020. (AAO).
- Over 2.3 million Americans are visually impaired; over 1 million Americans over 40 are blind from eye disease.
- 17% of Americans aged 45 or older report some type of vision impairment. This rises with age to 26% at age 75 and older.
- 5 million Americans have vision problems related to diabetes.
Pretty sobering, isn't it?
OK, so what can you do?
Well
do what I do! Provide your eyes with the ammunition they need to fight
degeneration! This means ensuring that you have a reasonable intake of
the essential nutrients that ‘feed’ your eyes and keep them healthy.
The key ones are Zeaxanthin, Lutein, Bilberry Extract, N-Acetyl Cysteine, L-Carnosine, Beta Carotene plus trace elements such as Molybdenum, various Vitamins and a host of other Co-Factors such as Enzymes to ensure bio-availability.
Yes,
you may be thinking, but do these nutrients really work? Well, they do
for me! I recently had an eye exam and the optician was really quite
amazed at the health of my eyes.
So, how do I get the
‘ammunition’? Simple, all these nutrients are in Total Balance, and a
lot more which help the eyes but I have not mentioned here.
The
benefits that Total Balance has given to my eyes are not unique. We
frequently get reports from customers who have astonished their
opticians by improving their eyesight just through Total Balance.
Here is just one from a customer in the UK. Susan says:
"Must
tell you - I went to have my eyes examined and no matter what the
doctor did he came up scratching his head. My eyes were stronger and
thus need only a slight prescription for reading and distance. This may
only be a coincidence, but the only thing I have changed in my life was
taking your supplements. Can I say, "WOW!", and thank you and keep
those supplements coming! Have a good day."
I
remember another one from a customer who had been on Total Balance for
a bit over a year. He wrote and said that the pressure behind his eyes
that he has had for as long as he could remember has miraculously gone!
His Doctor could not believe it and rechecked and it definitely had
gone. He put these great results down to Total Balance.
But,
none of this is surprising. Even the National Eye Institute believes
that half of all blindness can be prevented. Of course lifestyle
choices such as smoking, diet and excess alcohol consumption are often
cited as culprits but even the National Eye Institute acknowledge that
a lack of anti-oxidants which are the ‘ammunition’ that I referred to
earlier is also a significant cause.
(By the way, the blindness being experienced by my father in law is not as a result of any negative lifestyle choices.)
Here is a simple example of just how one nutrient (anti-oxidant) I mentioned earlier can help your eyes. Lutein! Consider this:
In
one Harvard study, a diet of 6 milligrams of lutein per day led to a 57
per cent lower prevalence of Aged Macular Degeneration, leading the
study's authors to suggest a diet high in lutein to lower the risk of
contracting AMD.
Now this is just one nutrient and a
relatively weak one at that. There are dozens more studies supporting
the efficacy of the nutrients that I mentioned above. By the way we
have 5mgs a day of Lutein in a full dose of Total Balance. It becomes
even more effective when it is combined with the other ingredients I
mentioned above.
It is no miracle that Total Balance helps
your eyes…it is pure science that it does. Add our Omega 3 to your
daily Total Balance regime as well and you will be doing your eyes an
even bigger favor.
In good health and may you keep your good eyesight,
Warren Matthews
PS. I should also mention that something else that is often overlooked
when discussing eyes iis the role that glycation plays in their
degeneration. To protect against
glycation you need to take carnosine a full dose of which is in Total Balance.