Supplement for eye sight?

[Atty]

My entire family has needed glasses at some point in their lives. Usually around their 30's-40's. I'm taking it all the video games, TV, Internet, and just my general life style have sped up the process in me.

Are there any vitamins/minerals I can take day-day to help improve or maintain my sight? I accept that one day I'll need contacts or that I'll just pay for corrective surgery but I'd like to do whatever I can to prevent that.

FYI: I have glasses but my prescription has changed (got them 3 years ago) I guess since one eye is blurry, I've used them maybe twice. I can read, see, etc, fine, I'm just noticing a bit of degradation in detail at a distance, its annoying.

E: I'm 20 years old. Already take a multivitamin, antioxidant, B Complex, and Mineral tablet each day.

 

[Alone]

E: I'm 20 years old. Already take a multivitamin, antioxidant, B Complex, and Mineral tablet each day.

Eat more yellow mustard.

 

[Kipper]

The short answer: no. Your near/farsightedness is probably inherited, as you may be aware. There's nothing you can do about that, except, I suppose, reduce eyestrain by taking breaks from the computer, although I am hardly an ophthalmologist. There is some limited evidence connecting higher vitamin A intake to decreased incidence of macular degeneration, an age-related condition that can eventually end in blindness. At age 20, you have very little concern for that. Diseases related to vitamin A deficiency are also unheard of in the United States.

There really is very little need to SUPPLEMENT vitamin A, however, because it's so widespread in the food supply. A balanced diet more than amply meets needs. The only decent argument that can be made for supplementation of any vitamin/mineral in healthy adults is vitamin D. There is SOME suggestion that vitamin D and macular degeneration are connected, although vitamin D is the current "hot vitamin" in research. That, and an unrelated supplement - fish oil. Otherwise, you have very expensive urine and are probably wasting your money.

 

[Atty]

The only reason I'm taking this combo attack is because it was a free trial from Proactive.

Cost me $3.95 for a 30 day trial, so that comes out to...basically nothing per day for my urine to chock full of nutrients.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I swear I've had an improvement in my eyesight after starting to eat spinach pretty much daily. After about a week I was able to read my TV's program guide for the first time without getting up from the couch.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

No, eye sight is typically a function of cornea shape. That is purely genetics. The best supplement would be a dose of corneal re-shaping through surgery.

 

[Atty]

I'll pick up some up at GNC after work. Think they'll do it as an outpatient procedure? Hopefully their return policy still applies...

 

[SociallyChallenged]

I'll pick up some up at GNC after work. Think they'll do it as an outpatient procedure? Hopefully their return policy still applies...

Haha. That would be nice, wouldn't it? Really though, the majority of focus comes from the cornea (~90%), which changes shape as you age. The other 10% comes from the lens, which also changes (by losing elasticity). As much as I'd like to change that (I have the same issue as you, but very minor), these are dictated dominantly by genetics. If you eat a good diet and exercise, you may be able to maintain better than normal lens elasticity, but everything else will degenerate as is.

 

[ThorofThunder]

E: I'm 20 years old. Already take a multivitamin, antioxidant, B Complex, and Mineral tablet each day.

...

Doesn't that actually become counter-productive at some point? If you force your body to be reliant on multivitamins and pills for nutrients then you're just going to screw yourself over in the long rung.

I say drop half of your vitamins and supplements, at least. Grab a gym membership and exercise. You don't have to lift weights, just do cardio 3-4 times a week. Get that blood flowing.

Eat more healthily and only drink water. You can't do too much for your eyes.

 

[Yeem]

Carrots.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

...

Doesn't that actually become counter-productive at some point? If you force your body to be reliant on multivitamins and pills for nutrients then you're just going to screw yourself over in the long rung.

I say drop half of your vitamins and supplements, at least. Grab a gym membership and exercise. You don't have to lift weights, just do cardio 3-4 times a week. Get that blood flowing.

Eat more healthily and only drink water. You can't do too much for your eyes.

Well, technically, using supplements is not counterproductive. Your body doesn't synthesize most of the vitamins in your body, therefore they are required for function. The best way to get these is through diet, but for those who are pathological, vitamins work great. I don't understand your logic of "becoming reliant" and vitamins "screwing you over in the long run." That's not true.

Also, weightlifting should be a part of every conditioning program. It improves insulin sensitivity (thereby reducing risks of diabetes, metabolic syndrome, obesity, atherosclerosis, stroke, and more) and increases muscle mass (reduces risk of sarcopenia). Endurance exercise is not the only thing that needs to be done anymore. There's too much research showing the benefits of anaerobic training are just as well-founded as aerobic exercise.

 

[Atty]

...

Doesn't that actually become counter-productive at some point? If you force your body to be reliant on multivitamins and pills for nutrients then you're just going to screw yourself over in the long rung.

I say drop half of your vitamins and supplements, at least. Grab a gym membership and exercise. You don't have to lift weights, just do cardio 3-4 times a week. Get that blood flowing.

Eat more healthily and only drink water. You can't do too much for your eyes.

I already have a gym membership, run almost daily, work on my feet everyday in and out of the sun, and do weights 4 times a week for the last 2 years. I'm in pretty good shape, save for the extra 10lbs or so I could stand to lose (I'm a picky eater, therefore shitty dieter.)

Also, except for drinking Coke Zero (Caffeine yummm) all I drink is water. And I only have a 1 coke a day, maybe two if I'm working an extra long shift.

 

[Alone]

...

Doesn't that actually become counter-productive at some point? If you force your body to be reliant on multivitamins and pills for nutrients then you're just going to screw yourself over in the long rung.

I say drop half of your vitamins and supplements, at least. Grab a gym membership and exercise. You don't have to lift weights, just do cardio 3-4 times a week. Get that blood flowing.

Eat more healthily and only drink water. You can't do too much for your eyes.

No offense, but that's horrible advice.

Multivitamin supplements are probably one of the few things you should be taking throughout your life. They do no damage (assuming they're taken properly), and can only help.

What's the point of having a gym membership if you're just going to do cardio? He can just run outside.

Lifting weights is very healthy, and probably some of the best exercise...I see no reason NOT to do it.

 

[Kipper]

No offense, but that's horrible advice.

Multivitamin supplements are probably one of the few things you should be taking throughout your life. They do no damage (assuming they're taken properly), and can only help.

What's the point of having a gym membership if you're just going to do cardio? He can just run outside.

Lifting weights is very healthy, and probably some of the best exercise...I see no reason NOT to do it.

Unless you are pregnant, of child-bearing age, lactating, infants elderly, or have some kind of medical condition/dietary restrictions (e.g. veganism/strict vegetarianism, alcoholism, osteoporosis) requiring it there is zero reason to take a multivitamin. The only exception is vitamin D, and that is still a controversial exception. The claim that multivitamins are "harmless" is unsubstantiated. Although they can appear benign, there are side effects (sometimes serious) to overdose of vitamins from supplements, and for those eating a diversified diet there is little risk of deficiency.

The idea that vitamins are a daily necessity or can "only help" is nonsense sold to you by the supplement industry, whose goal it is to sell you more vitamins. We've gotten along for 20,000+ years without these things.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

We weren't eating the shit we are now for 20,000+ years. Even a lot of the healthy food we have now is less nutritious than it used to be. The average modern diet is horrendous, a multivitamin is the only way a lot of folks would get adequate amounts the nutrients they need.

 

[Kipper]

We weren't eating the shit we are now for 20,000+ years. Even a lot of the healthy food we have now is less nutritious than it used to be. The average modern diet is horrendous, a multivitamin is the only way a lot of folks would get adequate amounts the nutrients they need.

Wrong. These people don't NEED a multivitamin, they need to FIX THEIR DIETS. Even sugary mass-market cereals are fortified with enough vitamins to make a multivitamin completely unnecessary. Processed foods usually have nutrients added back in. Suggesting people take a multivitamin just addresses the symptoms of the problem, just like prescribing medication to someone with high blood pressure or cholesterol before trying anything else. It's irresponsible, pointless, and overall, unnecessary.

Also, the idea that vegetables somehow have "less nutrients" than they used to has been thrown around but is fairly unsubstantiated since there was a great deal of wider variability in crop species grown fifty years ago compared to today. Even then, once again, if your diet is balanced - there is no need for a multivitamin barring the exceptions I mentioned earlier.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

Wrong. These people don't NEED a multivitamin, they need to FIX THEIR DIETS. Even sugary mass-market cereals are fortified with enough vitamins to make a multivitamin completely unnecessary. Processed foods usually have nutrients added back in. Suggesting people take a multivitamin just addresses the symptoms of the problem, just like prescribing medication to someone with high blood pressure or cholesterol before trying anything else. It's irresponsible, pointless, and overall, unnecessary.

Also, the idea that vegetables somehow have "less nutrients" than they used to has been thrown around but is fairly unsubstantiated since there was a great deal of wider variability in crop species grown fifty years ago compared to today. Even then, once again, if your diet is balanced - there is no need for a multivitamin barring the exceptions I mentioned earlier.

I don't necessarily disagree with your overall point, but the fact is most folks aren't willing to change their diets in any substantial way to be healthier, and a crappy diet plus a multivitamin is better than a crappy diet without one.

 

[Kipper]

I don't necessarily disagree with your overall point, but the fact is most folks aren't willing to change their diets in any substantial way to be healthier, and a crappy diet plus a multivitamin is better than a crappy diet without one.

As I posted above, most "crappy" foods (sugared cereals, refined grains, etc.) are either enriched or fortified with minerals, so even with the most horrible of diets a multivitamin is still unnecessary. Add to that the fact most people are eating TOO much, so even with poor nutrient density you still get adequate intakes. Scurvy (vitamin C), pellagra (niacin), neural tube defects (folate), macro/microcytic anemias (folate/B12, iron), and other nutrient deficiencies common in the developing world are quite uncommon in the United States - at least in the normal population, eating a "normal" diet where these vitamins appear in abundance. Even rickets (vitamin D/calcium) is pretty uncommon and only really shows up in populations where there is a higher risk - D is really the only exception to supplementing.

So as I said, multivitamin use is really unnecessary...even if your diet is "crappy." This type of person is more likely to get a chronic disease than a disease of micronutrient deficiency.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

The average modern diet absolutely does not consist of anything approaching proper nutrition, fortified or not. Even if you eat four bowls of cereal a day on top of all the other processed crap you are still likely not getting enough of some nutrients. And nutrient insufficiencies do contribute to chronic diseases.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

The average modern diet absolutely does not consist of anything approaching proper nutrition, fortified or not. Even if you eat four bowls of cereal a day on top of all the other processed crap you are still likely not getting enough of some nutrients. And nutrient insufficiencies do contribute to chronic diseases.

And you think multivitamins, perhaps some of the most processed materials around, are going to help people? Multivitamins aid individuals who are pathological, especially the elderly. The benefits they offer for young, relatively healthy individuals are nil. If you eat crap and take a vitamin, that doesn't change the fact that you're eating crap. That's like trying to mop up a swimming pool. It's insignificant.

Also, keep in mind, if anybody would know whether to be for/against multivitamins, it would be Kipper. I believe he's our resident dietician/nutritionist.

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

I don't see how you can say it's insignificant if you are short one or more vitamins from your diet, but then get those vitamins from a multi. I'm not trying to argue that a multi is a substitute for a proper diet, but I will stand by a multi plus a poor diet is better than just a poor diet alone. And you can't say someone is getting sufficient amounts of a vitamin just because they don't develop the acute symptoms of a deficiency. Young healthy people that "don't need" multivitamins turn into old sick people that do because because of just such insufficiencies. Look into Dr. Ames & triage theory. It's also demonstrated (I think, can't remember for sure if this is the specific video) in this vitamin D lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emjCzaHtSrg

 

[Kipper]

I don't see how you can say it's insignificant if you are short one or more vitamins from your diet, but then get those vitamins from a multi. I'm not trying to argue that a multi is a substitute for a proper diet, but I will stand by a multi plus a poor diet is better than just a poor diet alone. And you can't say someone is getting sufficient amounts of a vitamin just because they don't develop the acute symptoms of a deficiency. Young healthy people that "don't need" multivitamins turn into old sick people that do because because of just such insufficiencies. Look into Dr. Ames & triage theory. It's also demonstrated (I think, can't remember for sure if this is the specific video) in this vitamin D lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emjCzaHtSrg

I've said this again and again. For a normal, healthy person eating a "crappy" diet, it is very, very unlikely that they will suffer from vitamin and mineral deficiencies - possibly with the exception of vitamin D, because food is fortified and enriched to all hell (D is found in a lot of fortified products as well, besides milk). A deficiency is intake below the recommended/adequate level, generally defined as a level necessary to prevent signs of deficiency, like rickets or scurvy. That's entirely the point behind enrichment and fortification, that you help people cover their micronutrient bases whatever food that they eat. This makes multivitamins by and large unnecessary and a waste of money. Eat 3/4ths of a cup of sugared cereals (most people will probably have ~1.5-2 cups in a sitting) and you are squared away for between 50-75% of your needs, before you leave the house.

As I have written multiple times in this thread, vitamin D is a possible exception to this rule because it is not widespread in the food system and most people don't go out into the sun. But D itself is also controversial. The current requirements are a level designed to prevent rickets, which is quite rare these days (but not unheard of, usually in darker-skinned populations), suggesting that current intakes/exposures are suboptimal, but adequate. Part of the problem is fortification assumes that children will drink 3-4 cups of milk a day, and consumption patterns have changed. There are a wealth of proponents on both sides of the argument that say requirements should be raised, and others who urge caution (there was a brief period a generation ago where vitamin D was heavily fortified into foods, especially baby formula and induced vitamin D toxicity in infants). As I've mentioned, D is pretty fortified in the "crappy foods" as well.

A horrible diet with a multivitamin may be "better" than a horrible diet, but I don't really see much difference, and I don't believe a multi is going to have a significant difference. If anything, it encourages complacency and provides a false sense of security to people who think that their food problems can be fixed by taking a pill. The triage theory is interesting, but as I've mentioned, with the exception of vitamin D, few people eating a crappy diet are going to end up nutrient deficient - so "triage theory" does not apply here. Rather, the problem that besets people with poor diets is that they end up with higher risk of chronic disease - obesity, metabolic syndrome, high blood cholesterol/lipids, diabetes, organ dysfunction, cancer, etc. Like it or not, a multivitamin is not going to ward off the majority of these diseases.

 

[Atty]

I don't take my multivitamins because I have an unhealthy diet, I have a healthier diet than 90% of the people I'm around on a a day-day basis, I just take them because why not? Are they doing me any harm? Nope. Could they maybe do some good? Yeah, perhaps. I don't see any down sides...

 

[Kipper]

I don't take my multivitamins because I have an unhealthy diet, I have a healthier diet than 90% of the people I'm around on a a day-day basis, I just take them because why not? Are they doing me any harm? Nope. Could they maybe do some good? Yeah, perhaps. I don't see any down sides...

I'm afraid you are incorrect. There are PLENTY of acute vitamin-mineral toxicities, although they usually require high levels of ingestion over an extended period of time. The most notable are iron, vitamin A, and vitamin D, although many vitamins are known to have undesirable side effects. For example, excessive vitamin C consumption is known to cause diarrhea and high intakes of niacin (B3) have been known to cause flushing and liver damage, among others. hypervitaminosis A and D affect everything from the liver to the skin. Excessive vitamin D (although what defines 'excess' is of some controversy) is linked to arterial calcification, excessive calcium in the blood, and calcification of soft tissue, excessive bone deposition, etc. Folate (folic acid) is a vitamin among whose many roles is the methylation of DNA - in short, this means it inactivates certain regions of DNA and activates others. A certain class of chemotherapeutic drugs are folate blockers, meaning that they help to slow the progression of cancer by preventing/slowing the activation of certain genes. Flooding the body with folic acid (from supplements, which are especially absorbable) antagonizes the action of the drug. But what if you're not on the drug? Synthetic folate could act as cancer growth promoters, in effect worsening cancers that are in their early stages of development. This genetic interaction was one of the primary arguments against fortification of grains with folic acid started about a generation ago.

Two other well-known large-scale epidemiological studies (ATBC and CARET) either found that vitamin supplementation did not help, or was in fact associated with higher incidence of certain cancers. The studies were actually stopped prematurely after it was shown that the vitamins were causing HARM instead of helping. Granted, the subjects were mostly in high-risk groups (e.g. workplace asbestos exposure or current smokers) but the studies underscore the fact that vitamin supplements CAN cause harm, especially if taken for extended periods. Vitamins are not inert substances - they are highly bioactive, reactive compounds with a multitude of systemic effects that we are only beginning to understand.

There is also a potential problem with overuse of antioxidant supplements like vitamin C or E, which are the most popular, along with what I would call "secondary" antioxidants - vitamins which participate in antioxidant processes and help to maintain the oxidant-antioxidant balance in the body. Simply put, we are generally told that oxidation is a BAD thing, but that obscures the fact that certain white blood cells use oxidation as a method to kill pathogens and foreign invaders, and that oxidation is a way to induce adaptations in the human body. For example, exercise induces a form of oxidative stress.,The body adapts to this stress by inducing growth; as a result, your endurance/strength increases. Through adaptations and maintenance of antioxidant pools, the body is able to keep the balance of oxidants and antioxidants in the body constant.

But if you force large quantities of antioxidants into the body, you risk upsetting this balance, driving the reaction the other way. With lots more antioxidants floating around, the immune cells' oxidative bursts don't work as well and you inhibit your body's ability to adapt. There is also some laboratory evidence that reactive oxygen species (oxidants) may also serve a POSITIVE regulatory role in the body.

So what do you do? GET YOUR ANTIOXIDANTS/VITAMINS/MINERALS FROM FOOD. Food contains a gaggle of hundreds of different active compounds, many of which we poorly understand, particularly when it comes to interactions between all of these compounds. As I mentioned, our understanding of vitamins themselves is still developing. Supplements may have their place for specific uses, like the examples I've given in this thread, but the available scientific evidence does not support regular use, particularly not in the quantities that the general public consumes them. There is very little, if any, evidence that they help, and in contrast, a greater amount of evidence that they can cause harm. Besides, vegetables are 100% safe. If I can get my vitamins/minerals/antioxidants simply by eating more vegetables, why bother with the pills?

 

[Gonad the Barbarian]

A multivitamin isn't going to take you over the threshold into toxicity unless you are taking handfuls of the things or your diet is seriously out of whack in the first place. And you can't draw a conclusion that more vitamins = more cancer because cancer cells feed off the same nutrients the rest of your body does.