Protecting Your Eyesight and Preserve Healthy Vision

0:00 Speaker 1 It’s a new day and a new year, just about. I mean, after the election, we have to, you know, all come together. And with us today is Dr. Peter Michalos. And Dr. Peter, live long and prosper. And tell me, what advice would you give this week?

0:21 Speaker 2 Well, this week we’re going to talk about a very important topic, and that’s our vision. And human vision is extremely important. And as we age, it’s very important to be able to navigate the world. And a lot of times falls and accidents happen when people’s vision starts diminishing.

0:40 Many driving accidents are due to vision problems. That’s why people have to have vision tests before they can drive. And our vision starts when we’re newborn babies. And in the beginning, we only see them black and white and shades of gray. And we only see things about 8 to 12 inches away when we’re newborn. And then around

1:00 one month old, we start getting some blurry vision. And the first color we actually see is red. It’s usually the first color that babies can distinguish. And then by one to three months, we can track things and moving objects and start to focus. And our eyes are very important.

1:17 They’re like a camera, and that camera is actually an extension of the brain. And we have a lens in the camera, and then we have the back of the eye called the retina. And we need all that to be able to see properly and function in the world.

1:34 And some of the things we can do to protect our eyes, we now know that, for example, something called cataract, which is a clouding of the lens, we can get painless progressive visual loss, and it’s aggravated by things like ultraviolet radiation, and we now know that’s cumulative over a lifetime.

1:54 We also know that things like steroids and even like intranasal steroids, people take puffers for different diseases. They also accelerate cataracts. People who take steroids for autoimmune disease, it’s a balancing act, or even steroid shots in their joints, That can also speed up cataract formation as well. And other things that can affect the eye. We now know

2:19 that smoking and people who smoke, that accelerates the risk of macular degeneration. We also know that diet affects it. Eating spinach, kale, and green leafy vegetable helps protect us from macular degeneration and slow it down. And there’s even large-scale studies. One is called the ARAGE-2 study. And in the ARIT2 study, they found that people who take vitamins

2:44 that contain vitamin C, zinc, lutein, zeanthenin, that slowed down the progression of macular degeneration. And some people actually started getting better. And that’s why especially people with light skin, light eyes, they tell people to take that along in addition to their diet. And the amazing new inventions where they can give you a shot in the eye, for example,

3:08 if you have macular degeneration or blood in the back of the eye, and it can shrink the blood vessels. Some of the great ones were developed by a Columbia University-trained scientist, Dr. Yancopoulos of Regeneron, who made one of the great medicines that can stop blood and leakage in the back of the eye. And other advances are, like

3:29 in cataract surgery, we have new lenses now that will be able to actually focus and change focus for distance and near. And these lens implants even have built-in UV light. We also have the ability to do laser on the eye to change the shape of the cornea. And if we have blood or hemorrhage in the back of the eye,

3:50 It can even be spot-welded at the back of the eye. And that was invented in 1938 by a guy in Germany, Miles Schwickerath, who took a lady with diabetes up to a rooftop, put liquid cocaine in the eye, dilated the pupil, and spot-welded it with a handheld magnifying glass. And that was the birth of laser. So all these amazing things

4:09 that have happened in technology to help us. And also eyeglass production. You know, one of our founding fathers invented bifocals, Ben Franklin. and people can see better. And years ago, you know, when people got older and they needed glasses, they basically couldn’t function in society. So importance of vision and eating those proper foods that we talked about, like

4:33 the green leafy vegetables and a healthy Mediterranean diet that contains... In other words, if our.

4:39 Speaker 1 You know, we live on a planet Earth. And if our creator created it, whether it’s vegetables, whether it’s fruit, whether it’s nuts... If our creator created it for our purpose, then we should eat it, versus all the ingredients all the other companies add to things.

4:58 Speaker 2 Yes, farm-to-table is very important. That’s why we included a whole chapter in our new book, The Death of Aging, on Amazon. It’s 512 pages, and we included what to eat for better health, for better eyes, and even did an entire section on all the great new advances that are happening in ophthalmology and improving eyesight. and the amazing

5:19 study that you and I talked about with the OSK Yamanaka genes for epigenetic reprogramming and restoring eyesight. So a lot of great things happening, and people need to keep listening to WABC for more ways on living healthier, because in the end, our mental and physical health is most important.

5:39 The rest we can figure out. And to learn more, go read thedeathofaging.com and find out more about health and living long and prospering.

5:48 Speaker 1 God bless you, and thank you for all the lives you saved, and we’ll talk again real soon. Thank you.

5:55 Speaker 2 Thank you, John, for always getting the truth out on the Cats Roundtable.