Resveratrol may help diabetics overcome eye damage by preventing the growth of abnormal blood vessels in the eyes.

In a recent study by researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine, it was found that resveratrol, a key compound in red wine and fresh foods such as peanuts and fresh grapes, may be able to save the diabetics from vision loss in the near future.

Published in the American Journal of Pathology, researchers stated that the compound can reverse the growth of abnormal blood vessels in the eyes (in animal studies).

Retinal damage was reduced when the blood vessel growth was regulated. According to Dr. Rajendra Apte, this is a very novel way of looking at resveratrol because for many years, laymen and scientists studied and used resveratrol for its heart-healthy benefits and antioxidant content.

The study

While many people are confident of resveratrol’s ability to protect the heart and slow aging, few have looked at this compound for its ability to protect the eyes, especially in the face of age-related macular degeneration and type 2 diabetes-related eye damage.

Rajte’s study involved using lasers on the retinas of laboratory mice. The laser treatment encouraged the growth of additional blood vessels in the eyes of the animal subjects. When the abnormal vessels began to form, the mice were regular feedings of resveratrol.

The researchers observed that resveratrol was able to slow down the current growth of the blood vessels as well as inhibit further formation of additional blood vessels. The beneficial effects of the compound was identified in the chemical pathway eEF2.

While there was a measure of success in animal trials, Rajte added that the doses that were given to the mice were much higher than what was found in numerous bottles of regular red wine. Because of this, Dr. Rajte noted that if this approach was used on humans, then resveratrol must be given in its complete/full form in order to work effectively. I personally recommend Nature’s Way, because that’s the brand of resveratrol supplement I use.

Other benefits of taking resveratrol

Resveratrol can be sourced from fresh food, red wine and supplements. If you want a fuller dose and more convenient packaging, supplements are of course a good choice.

Three to five half-servings of red wine per week are also good. Don’t overdo it though; excessive use of alcohol is bad for the health. But as for resveratrol, the more you can get, the better the results. If you can get at least 2,000 milligrams per day, you are that much closer to reaping the full benefits of the compound.

And here are some other reasons to love resveratrol:

• It is a natural anti-inflammatory agent, which may help individuals with chronic inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, etc.
• Resveratrol also has been studied for its direct, anti-viral activities.
• Resveratrol has been reported to have anti-cancer properties. In addition to its antioxidant activities, resveratrol also initiates the death of cancerous cells. The problem with cancer cells is that they literally forget how to naturally die – which makes the abnormal cells malignant and dangerous to the human body. Resveratrol takes care of this problem by triggering natural cell death called apoptosis.
• Resveratrol may also be useful in combating Alzheimer’s disease by protecting the body’s nerves from physical damage and build-up of plaque.
• In addition to eye health, resveratrol can also help diabetics by improving cell sensitivity to insulin. Insulin production is not always the main problem with many type-2 diabetics; sometimes, the diabetics are producing enough insulin but the body’s cells are not responding to the natural insulin, which causes a host of problems.
• If you want something to aid in weight loss, forget hyped-up supplements – take resveratrol instead. According to studies, this compound can help people lose weight by initiating caloric restriction in the body.
• Resveratrol may also help reduce the incidence of breast cancer by inhibiting the interaction between the female hormone estrogen and the human DNA, according to a study performed by researchers from the University of Nebraska.
• According to an animal study from the University of South Florida, resveratrol may help people suffering from fatty liver by enhancing fat metabolism in this vital organ.

Sources:
nutraingredients.com
webmd.com
webmd.com
webmd.com
webmd.com
webmd.com

Ignoring your eye problems may be one of the worst things you can do for your brain, never mind your eyes.

The problem with Alzheimer’s disease is that once it’s identified, the damage has already been done.  Treatments exist that slow its debilitating effects, but precious little can be done to reverse them.

As such, much of Alzheimer’s research is devoted to identifying Alzheimer’s disease before the symptoms are made manifest.  Well, researchers think they may—emphasis on may—have found a symptom that’s predictive of Alzheimer’s development.

According to a study published in the online edition of the American Journal of Epidemiology, a striking number of people who go on to develop Alzheimer’s have poor eyesight years ahead of diagnosis.  And people particularly vulnerable to its onset are those that don’t have it treated.

Researchers discovered this link after looking at the results of a 1992 health study involving 625 people approaching their senior citizen years.  Among other findings, the researchers found that 27 percent of them developed Alzheimer’s over an eight and a half year period.

Now, 27 percent is a pretty high figure all by itself, but what really took the researchers by surprise was how high the correlation was between a person’s eye health and Alzheimer’s development.

For example, 25 percent of people who said their vision was “fair” or “poor” at the start of the study eventually developed Alzheimer’s, while only 10 percent of the 168 with Alzheimer’s had “excellent” eyesight throughout.

But where things really got interesting was when researchers looked at whether those with poor eyesight ever got their eyes checked out by an opthamologist.  Of course, many did, but those that didn’t were nine times (!!) more likely to develop Alzheimer’s than those who sought and received treatment.

Researchers aren’t sure what it is about eyesight that portends Alzheimer’s development, but Dr. Mary A.M. Rogers, the study’s lead researcher, believes it may have something to do with the fact that untreated eyesight is a crippling condition in and of itself.  In other words, if you can’t see, you’re probably not going to be doing the things that keep your mind active, like travelling, reading, exercising.

Research has shown that an active brain can help prevent Alzheimer’s.

Now, as the University of Michigan researchers themselves say, this study does not definitively link eyesight trouble to Alzheimer’s development.  After all, a fairly high percentage (11 percent) of the participants had poor eyesight and maintained normal brain function throughout.  But the correlation is certainly intriguing and gives researchers something to further dissect regarding the physiological signs that point to Alzheimer’s development.

Further research will settle the findings, but this study points to the importance of eye health. It goes without saying that you should schedule annual visits with your opthamologist, but there are things you can take to maintain your eye health.

There are many different eye ailments (e.g., eye strain, astigmatisms, blurred vision, bloodshot eyes, etc.), but for the general maintenance of healthy eyes, take N-acetylcysteine, as it helps protect the eyes’ lenses; a multivitamin with selenium (selenium helps the body absorb antioxidants that fight eye-damaging free radicals); and vitamin A.  Vitamin A helps the eyes’ rods and cones adjust to contrasting conditions (i.e., transitioning from a light room to a dark room) and is fuel for the retina.

Sources:
reuters.com
newsmaxhealth.com
Balch, Phyllis A.  “Prescription for Nutritional Healing.”  4^th Edition. 2006.  Avery:  New York

Italian researchers believe pine bark extract can improve the visual acuity of diabetics with poor eyesight.

Say you fall victim to some mysterious illness.  The illness is such that it renders four of your senses useless.  What’s the one sense that you’d want to keep more than any other?

For me, hands down, it’s eyesight.  I can’t imagine not being able to see remarkable sunsets, gorgeous landscapes, the bustling streets of New York City, or the clear blue waters of the Caribbean.

Yet for millions of diabetics, sight is something they’re robbed of.  It doesn’t happen for each and every one of the estimated 24 million Americans that have diabetes, but the chance of their becoming blind is steep indeed.  Simply because they’re diabetic, they are 60 percent more likely to develop cataracts and 40 percent more likely to develop glaucoma.

But a new study published in the Journal of Ocular Pharmacology and Therapeutics indicates that eyesight can be improved in diabetics by supplementing with pine bark extract.

Pine bark being used as a healing aid goes all the way back to the days when French explorers roamed the Americas.  Legend has it that when Jacques Cartier arrived on the new world, fellow shipmen of his were terribly ill with scurvy.  But thanks to the medicinal knowledge and know-how of the Native Americans, their symptoms disappeared after drinking tea made with pine bark from an East White Cedar tree.

Pine tree bark remains in use today.  Its high antioxidant content makes it something of an all-purpose supplement, helping people recover from arthritis, cancer and diabetes complications.

Speaking of diabetes complications, the participants in the aforementioned study had all been diabetic for four years.  For two months, the Italian researchers had 24 of the participants supplement with 150 milligrams of pine bark extract.  The remaining participants served as the control group and supplemented with a placebo.

At the end of the study, three out of every four participants that supplemented with the pine bark extract improved their eyesight.  They reported being able to see more clearly, and tests measuring their eye strength increased from 14/20 to 17/20.

Researchers believe the pine bark extract proved beneficial because of its ability to stimulate greater blood flow to the eyes.

It’s hard to believe that sugar regulation can have such a huge impact on the eyes, but that’s the very thing that puts diabetics at such risk for blindness.  When the body’s sugar levels can’t be maintained properly (i.e. due to an inability to produce enough insulin), the blood vessels in the eye become severely weakened.  This weakening increases the chances of capillaries bursting.  Capillaries in the eye burst all the time, but when they’re weakened because of insufficient sugar regulation, they often become closed off.  This means that they can’t grow back, robbing the retina of the blood it needs to survive and function.  Approximately 40 percent of diabetics with eye problems have diabetic retinopathy.

Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness in adults.

Sources:
nutraingredients.com
cancer.org
aoa.org

We know that keeping kids’ active and healthy means they need to spend more time outdoors playing and running around like we used to do at their age. But eye health is another important reason for keeping them out of the house (to say nothing of your own sanity).

Remember how after spending an hour or two outside on a sunny day you would go inside where it was darker and everything was sort of blurry?  This was due to the eyes’ rods and cones adjusting to the sudden differences in light.  Researchers believe it is the eyes exposure to the light from the sun that releases retinal dopamine, which blocks the eyes from growing.  The growth of the eyes causes them to experience short-sightedness, or myopia, which leads to a lifetime of one of two things:  (1) glasses or (2) squinting (pick your poison).  Not that there’s anything wrong with glasses, but I think most people would rather be glasses-free than having to wear them 24/7 to be able to see clearly.

Here’s how the researchers came to their conclusions regarding sunlight and kids’ eye health.  First off, they targeted their research to certain segments of children, namely 12-year-olds and 6-year-olds (approximately 13 percent and 1 percent of whom were myopic, respectively).  While they didn’t find sunlight played much of an impact on eye health in 6-year-olds – likely because their eyes are still in the growth stage – they found that sunlight impacted 12-year-olds’ eyesight in preventing myopia.

When researchers figured out how much time each respective 12-year-old spent outside, they found some interesting correlations, revolving around how much time they spent outside on average.  For instance, among those children that spent approximately three hours of their day outside, they were much less likely to have problems with myopia.  Among those with myopia, however, they were typically those who spent an average of 1 ½ hours outside each day.  What’s more, when close-up tasks were taken into account – i.e. those activities that require the eyes to be close to that which is being done, like reading, using the computer, watching the television at close range or playing video games – they were three times more likely than those children who spent more time outdoors and did comparatively little close-up activity.  The association between myopia and close-up activity was among those who spent an average of three hours per day doing shortsighted activities. 

The research has since been published in the journal Ophthalmology and was conducted by researchers from the University of Sydney in Australia (an institution that ranks in as among the top 25 biomedical universities in the world, according to Britain’s Higher Education Supplement).

Now, will outdoor activity save your young ones’ eyes for the rest of their lives?  Probably not.  After all, nearly half of all Americans today have some kind of eye problem, the most prevalent ones being myopia or astigmatism.  But preserving their eyesight for as long as possible should be a priority for all parents.  It starts by making sure their eating healthy (see past article on eye health, titled “Bright ‘Eye-dea”) and enjoying the outdoors.

Published in the journal Archives of Ophthalmology, the study says that the compounds lutein and zeaxanthin may prove as preventable antidotes to age-related macular degeneration (ARMD)!

Researchers studied the dietary habits of 4,500+ participants between the ages of 60 and 80 over a six year period. They did this to see what, if any, correlation there was between their diets and the onset of ARMD. Stunningly, the researchers found that the seniors who consumed the highest amounts of lutein and zeaxanthin had a 35 percent lower progression rate of age-related macular degeneration than those who consumed the smallest amounts of lutein and zeaxanthin. The researchers also examined the effects of beta-carotene and vitamins C and E on ARMD, but no dice; only lutein and zeaxanthin correlated to the rate of age-related macular degeneration.

Macular degeneration occurs when the center of the eyeball—called the macula—thins and atrophies, usually due to the wear and tear that accompanies the aging process. When this happens, a loss of vision results. Common symptoms include being unable to see fine details, blurry vision and an inability to discern between different colors. According to the American Academy of Opthamology, ARMD is the leading cause of vision loss for those over the age of 50, and its prevalence only increases with age (35 percent increased risk between the ages of 75 to 85).

The aforementioned preventive compounds to ARMD—zeaxanthin and lutein—are carotenoids, which, among other things, give fruits and vegetables their color. And guess what? They’re found in the very same foods you refused to eat when you were young, despite your mom’s insistence—like brussel sprouts, broccoli, spinach and zucchini.

If you still refuse to eat these vegetables, there are a number of other sources to go to. These include, corn, collard greens, romaine lettuce, eggs, peas, squash, kale and turnip greens. They’re also found in a number of fruits, such as grapes, kiwis, and oranges. But if you’re looking for the food source with the highest amount of lutein, corn is the winner (60 percent of total carotenoids found is lutein).

Currently, over a million people in the country suffer from age-related macular degeneration. Perhaps by eating more of these fruits and vegetables it will help bring that number down.