Healthy Vision: Prevent and Reverse Eye Disease through Better Nutrition

by Neal Adams

More than 180 million Americans have a problem with their vision. Most believe there's not much they can do on their own to change how much (or how little) they see. Now there is hope. In the past decade, an overwhelming number of clinical studies have shown that eating specific nutrients can help maintain vision well into old age, alleviate eye conditions, and even reverse the progress of diseases. In this book, top ophthalmologist Dr. Neal Adams uses clear, accessible language to translate research from hundreds of clinical studies in ophthalmology and nutrition to show how we can restore and maintain eyesight by changing our diet. The solution is simple: just naturally grown foods, with nutrients clinically proven to target the components of the eye affected by disease and/or age. The book explains how the eye functions and what nutrients influence these physiological processes, and includes tailored, easy-to-understand instruction on which foods and nutrients will target the reader's specific concerns. Particularly helpful for the 150 million Americans who visit their eye doctors annually as well as the 95 percent of Americans over 40 at risk for future vision loss.

Genres: Health, Nonfiction

240 pages, Paperback

First published November 4, 2014

Reviews

[Lora · Rating 4 out of 5]

good layout with meal plans at the end. Why meal plans? Because your nutrition affects every part of your body- your eyes being a significant reason to eat cleaner and learn about vitamins, etc.
Books can and do contradict each other at times, but when your doctor contradicts your experience, they wave their degree at you and cow you into ignoring your own needs, knowledge, and experience. So get the books, and work on negotiating with your doctor as long as you can.
I lean towards "Save Your Sight" as the better book to this one. But this one had some information not in the other one, so I'm keeping both for future reference.
The books aren't going to diss me when I ask questions. They answer, or they don't, and I build on my learning from other sources- even from conversations with my doctor.

[Teri · Rating 4 out of 5]

My optometrist recently informed me I have drusen-- I'd never even heard the word before (apparently it is calcium and other debris that collects around the retina). What my doc didn't inform me of was that it is an early sign of macular degeneration (a fancy term for going blind); nor did she offer anything constructive for how to halt or reverse it. I asked if diet played a role, and she told me, "Don't even go there." She only said we'd "keep an eye on it." Ugh. Thus began my search for solutions. (I also have the early stages of cataracts and have also had chronic dry eyes for several years... I can't even go swimming in a chlorinated pool any more because my eye literally blisters without its protective film. The doc doesn't even seem to recognize the problems may be related... clearly my eyes aren't healthy, and I'm only in my 40's.)

I'm so glad I found this book. Not only did it confirm my suspicions that diet does play a role (helping or hurting) in diseases of the eye, but so does exercise (i.e. our eyes need good circulation because our most fragile blood vessels are in the eyes). It's inspired me to exercise more and eat specific foods that nourish the eyes particularly (how's that for a concept-- eat for your eyes!) I perused a few different books on this subject and settled on this one to buy because, not only does it list specific nutrients that help for each specific kind of eye disease, but it favors whole foods over supplements (other books I looked through seem to lean towards supplements). I have found it very practical. It has given me a constructive path to try, when my eye doc was completely useless in offering any kind of advice at all. Time will tell if the info in this book helps or not, but I'm hoping at my next eye appointment that there will be improvement, or at least a halt in progression of the problems.

The author is very good at drawing analogies and making complicated concepts easy to understand. There was even a section in there about DNA that was so easy to understand that I was able to use it in our homeschool biology lesson to explain genetics to a 9-year old so that even she could understand it.

See a related review for Save Your Sight! by Marc R. Rose .

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Well written text Between the links of eye disease and nutrition highly recommend it. The author has an indept understanding of nutrition which is interesting to read through

Main takeaways
Taurine -> veggie option (seaweed)
Carnitine -> has shown benefits in a single italian study but author seems to be quite convinced worth more looking into


Among others
In-depth look at bioflavonoids(bf) shown to be beneficial for eye sight
Diindolylmethane—DIM
bf controlling inflammation
( Broccoli cauliflower, kale, cabbage, ...)

Best overview are in en of chapter summaries and in appendix

[J.C. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically eat a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, plus whole grains and unprocessed foods.  If you have a particular eye disease, perhaps you’ll wish to eat more of the items Dr. Adams recommends for that condition.  [Disclaimer:  Dr. Adams is the retinist I see myself.]