in this video i'm going to share with you three eye health tips that i try to share with
every single one of my patients in the eye clinic because with these tips hopefully
you can keep your eyes seeing better and feeling better longer let's take a look
hey what's up this is Dr. Allen here from the doctor i health show hoping to learn all about
the eyes vision and finding the best vision products now today we're going to be talking
about just three simple easy eye health tips that i like to talk about and share with every
patient that comes in to see me for a routine eye examination these are just three tips that you
can incorporate into your lifestyle and hopefully they can keep your eyes seeing better and feeling
better the first tip is of course eating more fruits and vegetables a huge part of eye health
is the fact that the retina in the back of the eye that gives you your eyesight is one of the
most highly metabolic tissues in your entire body and that means that nutrition plays a huge role
in how that retina is able to function now i do hope to have more detailed videos going over
nutrition and which specific vitamins and minerals work the best for parts
of the eye in different eye diseases but the easiest thing that i tell with most patients
is to eat more green leafy vegetables and i'm not just talking about iceberg lettuce i mean
the dark leafy greens i mean spinach kale arugula just anything with the bitter with the dirt taste
it seems like i know everybody thinks that carrots is like the super food for the eyes
but in fact recent science has shown that green leafy vegetables is better because of something
called lutein. lutein is an antioxidant that's found in very high concentrations
in the center part of the back of the eyeball called the macula which is the center part of
your vision that gives you things like your sharp reading ability your color perception all of that
and not only is lutein one of the key ingredients in most eye vitamin supplements for diseases like
macular degeneration but has even been found now to be helpful in patients who have diabetic
retinopathy and overall having higher amounts of lutein is correlated with a higher amount
of macular pigment optical density or just higher amounts of protective pigment in the back of the
eye from high oxidative stress from sunlight exposure and things like that so again eat
your leafy greens and don't worry if you're not a salad person like myself i personally don't like
to eat salad instead just make a green smoothie or a shake or something like that there's a lot
of great recipes for these things and yes i try to drink or eat these as often as i can yum now there
are also vision and eye supplements that contain lutein and some people may choose to go that route
i do hope to have an entire video series going more in depth discussing the science of eye
vitamins so stay tuned for that one i personally think it's better to try to eat healthy foods and
incorporate that into your lifestyle because it's going to help fuel your whole body rather
than rely on supplements but at least if you want to know more about lutein specifically i'll put
at least some links below the like button two specific studies that give a really good review
of lutein and benefits for the eye now outside of eating really healthy a common thing that many eye
doctors will tell you is to wear sunglasses when you're outside and i don't just say sunglasses
but also wide brim hats and anything just to add some uv light protection to your eyes as well as
your eyelids because uv light from the sun over the course of your lifetime can contribute to
development of different eye diseases things like cataracts pterygium and pinguecula which we've
done videos on also thinning and aiding of your eyelids which can contribute to dark circles and
eye bags again all topics that we have covered on this channel and you certainly don't have to reach
for high-end expensive sunglasses there's many affordable brands of sun wear out there that offer
a hundred percent uv light protection just make sure that you look on the sides of your sunglasses
and that you're looking for something that says 100 uv or maybe 400 uv and that's because 400
nanometers is kind of the cutoff of where uv light ends and then your normal eyesight kind of begins
now the third tip that i talk with my patients about is cleaning their eyelashes and eyelids
on a daily basis and that's because your eyelashes are meant to do what to block out dust sweat and
oils from dripping into your eyes kind of like that brush on the bottom of a vacuum you know how
it spins and picks up stuff and eventually gets clogged up nasty hairs and whatnot
your eyelashes end up kind of looking like that under a microscope and unfortunately if it's not
tended to on a regular basis your eyelids can become red and inflamed something we
call blepharitis which can be a significant contributing factor for redness irritation
dry eye lots of other issues with ocular surface disease now there's many different options out
there for cleaning the eyelids and eyelashes i'll refer to other videos that i'll put again
below the like button in the video description no matter which way of cleaning the lashes you find
is best for you it's still just good to be doing it on a regular basis so that you're cleaning all
that gunk away now of course and as always these are three things that i typically just try to talk
with most of my patients about some people come in with serious eye conditions we have to kind of
focus on taking care of those things first but i think overall if people are to adapt these kind of
three tips to start eating healthier taking care of their eyes protecting them cleaning things out
their eyes are going to feel better and you're going to likely have better vision and at least
have healthier eyes going forward and hey let me know in the comments section which one of
these tips you found the most helpful and make sure you subscribe so that you don't miss my
future videos about diets and supplements all that cool stuff otherwise i hope this video helped you
out again dr allen here from the dr eye health show keep an eye on it we'll talk to you soon