Yuan Gao's top tips for looking after our eyes

From foods for helping our eyes to monitoring your vision at home, optometrist Yuan Gao has shared his top tips for living with macular disease.

Yuan’s advice came during National Eye Health Week, which puts the spotlight on how we can best look after our eyes. 

Food and nutrition

“A good place to start is eating a very good balanced diet with a lot of colourful fruits and green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale,” says Yuan.

“The reason is because these green leafy vegetables contain nutrients like lutein and zeaxanthin and these nutrients are scientifically proved to help with macula health.”

Carotenoids like lutein and zeaxanthin are effective against oxidants which speed up the aging process. Vitamins A, C and E are also effective antioxidants.

The vegetables that have the highest amount of lutein are:
Lutein in vegetables milligrams (mg)/100g (fresh)

• Kale 11.4 mg
• Red pepper 8.5 mg
• Spinach 7.9 mg
• Lettuce 4.7 mg
• Leek 3.6 mg
• Broccoli 3.3 mg
• Peas 1.7 mg

Yuan also recommends that people with dry AMD consider supplements which follow what is known as AREDS2.

“These nutrients were highlighted for their specific combination,” he says which can be broken down as the following: 

• Vitamin C 500mg
• Vitamin E 400 IU
• Copper 2mg
• Lutein 10mg
• Zeaxanthin 2mg
• Zinc 25mg

Talk to your GP before taking supplements or making major changes to your diet, especially if you take other medications. Avoid any supplements which do not specifically contain the clinically studied AREDS2 formula or which claim to be a cure for AMD.

Smoking

Smoking is bad for our overall health, and that includes our eyes with smokers up to four times more likely of developing AMD than someone who has never smoked.

Yuan said: “Smoking is one of the strongest modifiable risk factors for developing AMD. The reason it’s modifiable is because you have your own choice.”

So why is smoking particularly bad for our macula health?

Put simply, Yuan explained: “Tobacco smoke contains toxic chemicals and increases oxidative stress which is a process that damages cells in the back of the eye and speeds up the aging of your eyes.”

But he added: “It is never too late to stop smoking.”

Amsler Grid

An Amsler grid can help you to monitor your vision and detect changes such as wavy lines or blurriness at home.

Yuan said: “Wear your reading glasses and cover one eye. If you use one eye to look at the centre of the black dot you can use your vision to see if there are any distortions on the squares.

“If you do see distortions on the squares you can grab a pencil and draw the area on the grid to see where the distortions are. You can bring this paper to your retinal specialist to explain to them where you may have new distortions.”

Any further progression or sudden distortion of your central vision should be assessed by your optician or eye doctor as soon as possible.

Eye tests

Whether you go annually or every two years, going to see an optometrist for an eye test is highly recommended for everyone.

“You have to have your eyes tested regularly even if you don’t think anything is wrong, or even if you have dry AMD and you’ve been told there is no treatment, it is still a good idea to see an optometrist,” said Yuan.

The main for this is to monitor for any further developments.

Yuan said: “They will check every part of the eye including the back of the eye health; everything you need to monitor the overall health of the eye.”

Opticians will also offer an OCT scan, usually for an additional charge. This is an important test to check the back of the eye.

“These show the optometrist the cross-section layer of the macula and they can tell you if there is anything you need to worry about,” said Yuan.

An eye examination can often detect the early signs of many eye and general health conditions before you become aware of any symptoms.