Nutrients That Support Healthy Eye Functions
Do check out Dr J's list of recommendations for supporting a healthy eyesight here!
Why does our eyesight deteriorate as we age? The issue of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a problem that most people do face as they age.
Unfortunately, according to this article,
AMD is a vascular-metabolic-inflammatory disease, in which two sets of extracellular deposits, soft drusen/basal linear deposit (BLinD) and subretinal drusenoid deposit (SDD), confer risk for end-stages of atrophy and neovascularization.
Where inflammation is present, so will an immune system dysfunction be there, because the immune system is the main regulator of the inflammation signals within our body.
In Making Sense Of Our Immune System, I do highlight the main problems that our immune system faces as its functionality declines based on poor sustained lifestyle habits that we are subscribing to.
In that article, I also do highlight what aspects of can go wrong with our immune systems without us realising it.
Our sleeping, our stress management, our exercise and our diets are crucial.
The easiest thing to change up, as always, is our diet.
But there are so many more nutrients that can impact our immune system function at higher levels.
Some of these nutrients will deal with the inflammation response at its root. Getting the inflammation response correctly conditioned is necessary for ensuring a healthy tug-of-war between pro- and anti-inflammatory signalling pathways within the body.
We do have to understand that inflammation is an immune system response that is necessary to direct the immune cells to a breach, so that they will be able to defend the breach and eliminate all necessary invaders. It isn't about killing the inflammation response completely. Suboptimal lifestyle choices, though, will promote the inflammation response and cause it to become dysregulated, and that is what we want to be avoiding.
We do need to understand that there are 2 major signalling pathways in the body that regulate the inflammatory signalling process. The nuclear respiratory factor 2 (nrf2) is anti-inflammatory and signals the production of more glutathione antioxidants from within each cell (The Curious Case Of The NRF2 Pathway In The Body).
The anti-inflammatory nrf2 pathway is involved in a tug-of-war with the pro-inflammatory nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) pathway. A balance of these 2 pathways will regulate the inflammatory response in the body more adequately.
For a healthy eye function, we not only need to support a healthy immune system that can regulate the inflammatory signalling more effectively, but we also do need to consider what other specific nutrients do support eye functions too.
Here are some of the nutrients (may not be an exhaustive list):
A blend of the nutrients alpha lipoic acid, resveratrol, curcumin, epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG), olive fruit extract, rutin, quercetin, and hesperetin was found in this patent to support the production of endogenous glutathione within our cells by upregulating nrf2 activity.
Omega-3 fatty acids, namely eicospentanoic acid (EPA) and docosahexanoic acid (DHA) aid in reducing the activity of the pro-inflammatory nuclear factor kappa B (NF-κB) pathway. NF-κB is the major pathway that regulates the intensity of the inflammation signal in the body. The nrf2 pathway helps to balance out any overshoot that is coming from NF-κB, and these two pathways are in a constant tug-of-war battle for maintaining the inflammatory signal. In addition, DHA also plays other significant support roles within the eye.
Lutein and zeaxanthin provide eye support via protection from harmful high-powered waves such as the ultraviolet ray component in sunlight. If we are stuck at a desk job staring at a computer screen all day, lutein and zeaxanthin would also be helpful in protecting our eyes from the light waves emanating from our computers or other handheld devices.
Other dietary antioxidants such as the proanthocyanidins are also appropriate for protecting the lenses of our eyes by downregulating NF-κB.
Bearing that in mind, here is a product stack that Dr J recommends for supporting eye health:
Disclaimer: This link is an affiliate link and I may receive commissions for any purchases made via the link.