Prevent cataracts, slow aging & more....

Today's Post: Thursday, 7-23-2009

If you were born in 1959 or before or if you expect to live to be over 65, there are a number of eye diseases that can blind you or make your vision so poor, you can’t see much.

Recently it was reported that people who took multivitamins had telomeres 5% longer than people who didn’t. That means they aged more slowly and often looked and were 5% younger than the number of years old they actually were and very likely will live 5% longer or more.

The researchers think that this is because of the antioxidant vitamins and other nutrients such health oriented people often take as supplements or eat in vegetables and fruit they also tend to eat more of.

In addition to vitamin C and the natural form of vitamin E, the antioxidants, supplements, and foods that seem to most benefit your eyes keeping their circulation good and in other ways include blueberries, bilberries (a related berry to blueberries), bilberry extract, vitamin A, and the natural carotenes in foods that are orange or dark green such as Lutein & Zeaxanthin that are in such foods as sweet potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli, and most greens from kale to collard greens to romaine lettuce. (Those foods also have a lot of fiber and tend to be very low in calories. And most have vitamin C.) Bilberry extract, grape seed extract, Pycnogenol, alpha lipoic acid, and other antioxidants are also good for your eyes.

People who eat these foods and take these supplements tend to not only live longer and age more slowly, they are less likely to develop most of the eye degenerative disease or to develop them if they do at much older ages. This includes both kinds of macular degeneration. Also, people who eat a lot of these vegetables AND exercise regularly AND avoid excess sugar and refined grains tend not to develop type 2 diabetes. Since type 2 diabetes can destroy your eye & optic nerve blood supply, it can blind you. So that too is significant.

But as they seem to be caused by accumulated damage from sunlight, it’s been uncertain that cataracts were affected by these other protective measures.

It is known that wearing a broad brimmed hat in sunny weather &/or wearing dark glasses in bright sunny weather help prevent cataracts.

We also know that taking steroids, beta blockers, and being around second hand smoke or smoking all help produce cataracts.

But all that said, it would be nice if there was a supplement that directly prevented cataracts or might possibly make them better once they develop.

The good news is that one may have been found recently.

We already know that the supplement carnosine tends to block a process called glycation which is a kind of oxidation that excess sugar or blood sugar tends to speed up. That means talking carnosine slows aging and is particularly protective for people with blood sugar that’s too high.

We also know that for people who do strength training, interval cardio, or other vigorous exercise, taking carnosine helps your body to repair your muscles and build them larger.

So, we already know carnosine was a good supplement to consider taking.

The NewsMax health email I got last Saturday, 7-18 listed a recent study that showed that in tissue samples carnosine not only prevented cataracts, it tended to reverse them!

Given carnosine’s known effects we just listed, it sounds like to me that this means taking carnosine and keeping your blood sugar in the desirable range by eating right and exercising may well go a long way towards preventing cataracts. And, it might even improve mild cataracts you already have.

Cloudy vision is obnoxious. Very cloudy vision to the place you have to pay for an operation to replace the natural lens in your eye with an artificial one to see well, is even more so.

So, cataracts are well worth preventing using the methods we’ve described. And taking carnosine supplements may really help do that.