Nutrition can affect eye health. Nutritional omega-3 improves LASIK and PRK outcomes while possibly lowering the risk of AMD. Vitamin C improves PRK healing. Iron and calcium supplements, however, may increase the risk of glaucoma. I have always had a particular interest in the relationship of nutrition and eye health, particularly as it impacts LASIK and PRK laser vision correction. For example, I clearly have found that oral omega-3 intake — both short chain omega-3 found in flax seed oil and long chain omega-3 found in fish oil — improves LASIK and PRK healing and outcomes. For this reason I place all my patients on a combination of flax seed oil and fish oil before and after laser eye surgery. Similarly, I also place my PRK patients on oral Vitamin C as I have found that, working as an anti-oxidant, it improves healing of the corneal surface.
Because of my longstanding interest in nutrition and the eye, I took particular note of a new study presented last week in Chicago at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology. This study was conducted by Sophia Wang, a medical student at my alma mater medical school, UCSF, along with Shan Lin, M.D. Their study was based on a review of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES).
Their study showed that high intake of iron supplements or calcium supplements appeared to be associated with a higher risk of glaucoma. By contrast, however, higher dietary intake of iron or calcium in natural foods was associated with a lower risk of glaucoma!
This study suggests that there is something problematic for eye health about taking either iron or calcium in supplement form. This may be because this gives the body an unnatural and concentrated form of iron and calcium. Perhaps this causes a spike in blood levels not seen if these nutrients are administered more naturally. Perhaps also there is something other than iron or calcium in the iron and calcium rich natural foods that is helping to lower glaucoma rates in the second group of patients. Whatever the mechanism turns out to be, this is a very interesting set of findings.
The ever expanding body of knowledge about nutrition and eye health is something I find fascinating. Already it helps us to improve surgical outcomes and I’m sure we’ll learn many more ways to improve eye health from a variety of conditions, from glaucoma to macular degeneration to cataracts, based on better understandings of nutrition and the eye.
See Also
Supplements: Healing, Visual Outcomes with PRK
Patients with Omega-3 supplements healed faster after PRK laser eye surgery.
Epithelial Healing and Visual Outcomes Using Omega-3 Therapy Before and After Photorefractive Keratectomy Surgery (PRK)
Recruitment criteria for U.S. National Institutes of Health study on omega-3 and PRK.
National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention nutrition study.
Nutrition Assessment in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey
A description of the components of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
Factors Associated with Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Consumption of Vitamin A rich foods was negatively associated with age-related macular degeneration incidence.
Dry Eye: Omega-3 Acids Thought To Benefit Dry Eye Patients
The role of omega-3 nutritional therapy for dry eye is explored in the journal of the American Society of Cataract and Refractive Surgery.