Best Diet, Foods, & Eye Care Practices To Support Eye Health

Foods to support eye health

Here is a list of diets and foods that can help support eye health naturally: whole grains, vitamin C, and fatty acid.

Whole grains

One of the best ways to help the eyes is including whole grains in your diet. Though it may seem surprising, refractive errors like myopia can actually be worsened by high blood sugar levels.

Eating processed foods full of refined sugars causes the eye’s sclera to get thinner—the same thing that happens when myopia progresses. Consuming whole grains with a lower glycemic index, like muesli, multi-grain bread, and brown rice, can help your family better manage blood sugar levels. Which boost the benefits of wearing sunglasses and prescription eyewear for keeping refractive errors in check. 

To get more whole grains into your diet, try this Butternut Squash Flax Bread, High Protein Oatmeal and Chia Seed Oatmeal Muffins.

Vitamin C-rich fruits 

With the right foods, your diet can lower your family’s risk of developing AMD and cataracts even further. In particular, you’ll want to eat more fruits rich in Vitamin C. This antioxidant promotes cell repair and growth. That same ability allows it to counter the damage caused by free radicals, including those produced by UV overexposure.

As a general rule of thumb, eating more orange fruits like oranges, papayas, and cantaloupes will give you the Vitamin C you need to help your sunglasses keep your eyes youthful. Try recipes like a Tropical Smoothie and fresh Pineapple Orange Juice.

Fatty fish 

Stimulating your eyes’ natural tear production can help with dry eyes. A diet that includes fatty fish can help you do just that. DES is partially caused by an imbalance of Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids in the eyes, causing an inflammatory response.

Meanwhile, the likes of salmon and sardines contain high levels of Omega-3 fatty acids. By eating more fatty fish, you can thus reduce inflammation, relieve dry eyes, and more effectively treat them with the above methods. Try this Teriyaki Salmon to get a dose of healthy fatty fish.

In addition to whole grains, vitamin C, and fatty fish, incorporate these superfood foods as well:

Eye care practices to support eye health

Here are three tips to promote vision health: glasses, sunsglasses, and blue light glasses.

Get glasses if neeeded

When it comes to refractive errors, prescription glasses are crucial. However, the best ones shouldn’t just be able to correct vision. The glasses offered on Frames Direct show that they should also use quality, distortion-free lenses crafted by opticians to provide consistently clear eyesight. That's because glasses with distorted lenses can actually speed up how quickly refractive errors progress.

When it comes to nearsightedness, for example, lenses that overcorrect vision at the edges can further elongate the eyeballs and lead to high myopia, which can increase your risk of permanent vision loss. With the right eyewear, then, your family can prevent refractive errors from becoming more severe.

Choose the right sunglasses

Though AMD and cataracts are often diagnosed in those over 40, they can occur in people even younger due to overexposure to the sun’s UV rays.

That’s why wearing UV-blocking sunglasses outdoors—no matter the season or weather—is one of the most important tips promoted by eye health professionals.

You should also look for a “UV400” label, which reputable brands like Ray-Ban use to indicate that sunglasses provide the highest possible protection against UVA and UVB rays that can hasten eye aging. 

Use blue light glasses when using screens

Excess screen time isn’t limited to kids—if you use computers at work as well as smartphones and TVs at home for leisure, you may be using gadgets too much as well. Unfortunately, you blink less when you look at screens, and that can cause you to develop dry eye syndrome (DES) over time.

In fact, that’s one of the main reasons why more than 16 million Americans currently have it. The good news is that DES has no long-term impacts on your eye health and can easily be remedied by using artificial tears, taking breaks from screens, using Blue Light Glasses (like these) and drinking more water like Lemon Cucumber Water.

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