National Eye Health Week: Five Ways to Fight off Blindness

Avoiding the one thing that comes naturally with age can leave you feeling helpless and full of anxiety. Deteriorating vision can have an impact in both your personal and social life, affecting not only everyday living but friends and family around you. Although Age-Related Macular Denegation has no medical cure, preventing the onset of vision impairment or blindness is possible by following some simple rules.

Eat Healthy

A healthy balanced diet containing a wide variety of fruit and vegetables can not only benefit your overall health, but may also help keep the retina healthy. Diets rich in lutein and zeaxanthin can help restore meso-zeaxanthin in the macula to help maintain a healthy eye.

Alcohol Consumption

Keeping tight guards on alcohol consumption is essential for general health, but even more important for AMD. Heavy alcohol consumption can be associated with an increased risk of early AMD, thereby restricting yourself to the recommended daily alcohol limits of 3-4 units for men and 2-3 units for women is crucial.

Stop Smoking

Smokers are four times more likely at risk of developing age-related macular degeneration compared to non-smokers. Past smokers are also three times at risk of suffering from severe loss of vision.

Get Moving

Surprisingly enough exercise can help with the maintenance of good sight.  Research suggests that regular exercise may reduce the risk of vision loss which can occur from high blood pressure, diabetes and narrowing or hardening of the arteries.

Protect the Eyes

Starring directly towards the sun can be extremely damaging to the eye - doing so can cause irreversible damage to your eye sight and possibly lead to blindness.  Additionally wearing sunglasses or wide brimmed hat can help protect your eyes from UV rays.

National Eye Health Week is this week!
For more information visit Vision Matters