Six Easy Ways To Improve Your Eyesight

Just as people gain weight little by little, they sabotage their vision little by little and day by day. Expecting to keep 20-20 vision into old age when you don't do anything to care for your eyes is completely unrealistic. It's like expecting to keep your youthful, athletic figure into middle age, without eating right or exercising.

Without your active help, your eyes will inevitably develop age-related changes like presbyopia (needing reading glasses), cataract and maybe even macular degeneration.

Here's what you need to do if you want to avoid these common conditions and develop better vision:

1. Drink lots of water! The eye is highly active on a metabolic level. This means it produces a large amount of waste that needs to be disposed of. Keeping well hydrated makes it easier for the body to get these toxins out of the eye (and out of the body altogether) - that's got to be a good thing! Also, cataracts in particular are associated with dehydration - as the lens of the eye repeatedly shrinks and swells as your water levels fluctuate, it becomes increasingly cloudy - eventually resulting in cataract.

2. Eat at least one portion a day of one or more of these high-antioxidant foods: berries, broccoli, bok choi, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, citrus fruits, Cos lettuce, garlic, kale, melons, spinach, tomatoes, turnips, and watercress.

3. Avoid free radicals as much as possible. Most importantly, don't smoke (and avoid second hand smoke, too). Cut out trans or hydrogenated fats and oils. Keep salt and monosodium glutamate to a minimum and don't eat deep-fried, burnt or charred foods. Make sure you avoid Ultra Violet light damage by using UV400 glare blocking lenses.

4. Cut out "junk food". You know, deep down, what this is. I'd include any highly processed products, particularly anything with a high sugar or white flour content. Your body has to use up valuable reserves of trace minerals like chromium to process these foods, but as they only supply empty calories, not real nurishment, you end up physically worse off (and probably just a bit fatter, too).

5. Consider taking a nutritional supplement containing at least the AREDS formulation of vitamins A, C and E, plus selenium and zinc.

6. Go for your routine eye exam as and when your optometrist advises - once every two years as a minimum. Early detection of most medical eye conditions including early cataracts makes them much more straightforward to correct.

So, just as you can choose to have a lean, fit body through good diet and exercise (or give in to a flabby body with stiff, painful joints by eating and drining all the wrong things), you can choose to keep your eyes well nourished and sharp as a pin - well into old age. If you start looking after them NOW!