Want to see better? Eat Carrots

Vision improvement isn’t a foreign land. The concept has existed for centuries. People have constantly been poking around eyeballs to try to fix them or make them better. The western approach that we know today: glasses, contacts, and surgery are relatively new. Before this, people had crazy ways of solving eye problems.

For example cataracts, a common problem affects more than half of Americans by the time they turn 80. Cataract surgery has been found in ancient text as long ago as 5th century BC. Today we know that cataracts mainly happen because of aging. The tissues in your lens change. The lens is made up of proteins and water, and if those proteins clump up in one area then they make the area cloudy resulting in a cataract. A general symptom is fuzzy vision.

Back then, people didn’t know the science behind cataracts, and the ways to fix them were pretty extreme and scary. They usually involved doctors dislodging the lens, which is as disturbing as it sounds. It was done by either poking the lens out or hitting the eye with a blunt force hard enough so that the fibers that hold the lens in place would break. The procedures usually pushed the lens out of its spot and just left it floating in the eye.

Poking the Lens out to fix cataracts

Today because of science advancements we know to remove the lens and then replace it with an artificial lens called the IntraOcular Lens.

Some crazy vision improvement “treatments” like this still exist today. As recent as 2019. A problem arose in Nigeria. The “method” of improving your eyes has been to put onion water, battery water, or pee into your eyes. You can read more about it here: link

Luckily this tradition is being debunked and discontinued (I don’t expect to see any sane person putting battery water into their eyes).

Something we have all heard at some point in life is:

“Carrots are good for you”

Carrots don’t really improve vision. It is not based off of outdated science. Even though eating carrots is harmless, eating an excessive amount is not going to get you 20/20 vision. It's a lie.

Interestingly, this originated during world war 2. Allied pilots were said to be munching on carrots all day to improve their vision and then use their superior vision in dogfights. Ever since then the tale has stuck around. But the reality is carrots have alot of a vitamin called beta-carotene, which is really good for the eye. But won’t give you 20/20 anytime soon. Choosing to eat your carrots at dinner versus throwing them away won’t kill you though.

Just like carrots, here are some modern vision improvement concepts that are around today.

Don’t Read in the dark

Will reading in the dark really cause you to become nearsighted? It won’t cause any long-term damage to your eyes; Reading in the dark is safe, but do you really want to overwork your eyes? Your eyes are one of the few organs that are in use all the time. They also have normal working conditions. You can use your eyes all day and they won’t break, but when you expose them to strain or overwork them It can cause eye strain. Reading in the dark requires much more effort from the eye than reading in a well-lit area. You tire your eyes out a lot faster. Eye strain is the last thing you want. The strain won’t kill you, but your eyes are tired, dry, red and screaming for rest, you should listen to them. Eye strain will bring along a bunch of other complications; No one likes a headache from eye strain when there is a deadline to meet. On the other hand, the good news is that your mom was wrong all those times you got yelled at: Reading in the dark isn’t bad for you.

Watching TV will get you glasses

The truth is you can watch TV all day and still not get glasses. But the myth isn’t completely false. It's not about how much TV you watch, but how you watch TV. Television can strain your eyes more so than reading.

We tend to blink a lot less when starting at a screen. Blinking prevents your eyes from drying out by spreading oils and cleans the surface of your eye; it's good for you. By blinking less, you are making yourself more likely to experience eye strain. Habits such as not blinking or watching TV in the dark put more pressure on the eyes.

TV can worsen your vision, depending on the distance you are watching from. Watching from a close distance, less than 20 feet, for a long time will cause pseudo myopia (link) and provide the stimulus for myopia development. It's usually easier to stay in a certain spot without moving your eyes from the screen. You can get glasses from watching too much TV. But prevention comes in the form of just being aware. Moving your eyes around from time to time and sitting a little farther from the screen can make just the difference you need.

Looking at the sun

Please don’t do this. Looking into the Sun is not good for you in any possible way. “Getting the healing of the sun" properties is not worth becoming blind. Staring into the sun can be bad for you regardless if your eyes are open or closed because of UV radiation, and not to mention the BRIGHTNESS of the sun.

Throwing away your glasses

Contrary to popular belief, your glasses actually serve a purpose. They help you see better at a distance. This myth has the potential to be a lot more harmful than putting onion water in your eye, because of the number of important activities that require your eyes. Activities such as driving. Getting rid of your glasses is probably the worst driving decision you could make. But Aside from the obvious, choosing not to wear glasses for an extended time can have other complications as well. Check out this blog. (link)

Our understanding of the eye and vision in the past has not been all that great but luckily we make up for it today. Modern science has taught us that our vision isn’t static. It's fluid and changeable. Cataract surgery in the past usually guaranteed blindness or infection, but today many of the eye problems we can correct without a problem. Sadly, the only problem left is to “Correct” today is myopia.