Myopia - Dietary Influences page

[afrauenfeld]

Greetings,

I am an ophthalmologist from Austria, practicing preventative and rehabilitation specialised ophthalmology for over 10 years - my father has also been in the same line of work for over 40 years.

We have found that myopia can easily be prevented during childhood, and in many cases reversed during adulthood. While much of the direct impact comes from the use of the eyes, especially prolonged short distance focus, elevated insulin response triggers also aggravate myopia symptoms greatly.

A good 30% of the success in vision rehabilitation comes from reducing the body's exposure to sugars / simple carbohydrates. The impact of eliminating sugar from the diet on vision is nothing short of astonishing, especially when paired with a good rehabilitative program.

I personally have overseen easily over 300 cases where adults with 20/70 vision have managed to get to 20/20 and even 20/10 without surgery.

- Alex Frauenfeld
Frauenfeld Vision Clinic | Preventative and Restorative Vision Care

[Corvidae]

Interesting! What about, like, exercises to improve vision?

[LJH]

This is very interesting. I've been nearsighted since birth (thanks, Mom, for the dieting and chainsmoking all the while you were carrying me ) and it's gotten progressively worse over my 64 years, each prescription being slightly stronger than the last. Right now, if I put my glasses down and wander off I can't see well enough to find them again which is annoying as hell.

I cut out all grains and (non-fruit supplied) sugars in February of 2011 and my latest eye exam was February of this year. For the first time in 50 years my prescription was ever-so-slightly weaker than the previous. Maybe coincidence, maybe not? Whatever, I'll take it.

[proo]

Is the rehabilitation you speak of similar to the Bates method?

[Knifegill]

Spam

[Corvidae]

Spam

Yes but strangely appealing spam. Also ineffective, since we obviously were interested in more information but were not able to get any.

[paleo-bunny]

Greetings,

I am an ophthalmologist from Austria, practicing preventative and rehabilitation specialised ophthalmology for over 10 years - my father has also been in the same line of work for over 40 years.

We have found that myopia can easily be prevented during childhood, and in many cases reversed during adulthood. While much of the direct impact comes from the use of the eyes, especially prolonged short distance focus, elevated insulin response triggers also aggravate myopia symptoms greatly.

A good 30% of the success in vision rehabilitation comes from reducing the body's exposure to sugars / simple carbohydrates. The impact of eliminating sugar from the diet on vision is nothing short of astonishing, especially when paired with a good rehabilitative program.

I personally have overseen easily over 300 cases where adults with 20/70 vision have managed to get to 20/20 and even 20/10 without surgery.

- Alex Frauenfeld
Frauenfeld Vision Clinic | Preventative and Restorative Vision Care

I didn't develop short-sightedness until my early twenties. I put that down to having to read lots of academic articles in small print while studying for my degree. I've read that wheat consumption is linked to myopia - I've not heard of any purported connection with carb consumption before.

When I first got specs I probably wore them when I really didn't need to do so because I loved seeing things so sharply, especially trees which I find especially beautiful. I am a very visual person.

My sister has better than 20/20 eyesight. She has been obese most of her life and certainly does not stint on the carbs.

I was born with a freaky ability to focus on the doctors and nurses around me. They were astonished by this. I was born 3 weeks late. I was able to focus at 10 cm distance into early adulthood. Now it's probably around 15 cm.

[afrauenfeld]

We have a very busy practice, I am unable to check the forum frequently.

I can attempt to answer some questions, though some of these subjects can not be done much justice in a paragraph or two. Also bear in mind that the established vision correction community does not subscribe to many of these concepts, as the prevailing understanding it that myopia must be treated with corrective vision lenses.

Bates method - proven not to work. Some of it is dangerous for your eyes (like looking into the sun, as some people misinterpret Bates). He did have success in improving vision in a large number of cases however, not because of correct treatment necessarily, but because the eye is capable of repairing itself (as much of the rest of the human body) once the damaging influences are removed.

Rehabilitation: This is the core of our practice and the subject of 40 years of my father's experience and ten years practice on my part. It's a large topic. It does not work for ever case, and it's not the same process for every case. The core concept is that in more instances than not, vision of 20/70 or less can be restored to 20/20 within 1-2 years. Daily 2-3 hour work is necessary, changing the eye's focal plane by stimulating focus on the far range of its current ability.

Carbs: Carbs do not cause myopia. Extended close focal plane focus does (really, it is the muscle strain it creates, and the elongation of the eyeball that follows). The insulin spikes caused by carbs can further aggravate symptoms, aside from causing increased shifts in vision beyond normal changes throughout the day. As such, insulin spikes make it difficult to work on a successful rehab program.

Prescriptions increasing: This is fact, and true in almost all corrective vision patients. It boggles my mind how we address a symptom, and then as the symptom gets worse, we just increase the dosage of the "cure". How many other medical fields are known to take this as on as the primary form of care? The fact is that the primary cause of what is originally a temporary symptom of myopia (nothing more), becomes a permanent problem because of these negative diopter lenses. They are what we have found to be the primary cause in permanent and significant (-2 or greater) myopia.

Again, please bear in mind that this is a very short summation of your questions. This is not a simple subject. Many long term studies (many on primates) have conclusively shown what I am talking about, and are known to the medical community. Much like the 'food pyramid' in the U.S. provides a very skewed education about dietary health, we should accept that your personal health may not always be the primary motivation of the industry providing treatment.

Over 60% of the adult population in many countries in Western Europe and North America have permanent myopia symptoms. This is identical to the diabetes epidemic. It is caused by external influence, our bodies did not suddenly become incapable of operating normally. If caught early, we CAN reverse these symptoms and in many cases we can reduce the degree of permanent myopia. Many of the detractors of this rather evident set of facts either have financial motivations in arguing against it, or simply are unwilling to challenge the status quo.

Spam: I'm not sure how to address this one-word accusation. I prefer a civilized and fruitful dialog that potentially benefits us all, over that type of 'trolling' commentary.

Dr. Alexander Frauenfeld.
Frauenfeld Vision Clinic | Preventative and Restorative Vision Care

[Knifegill]

You seem like an actual person. And it's cute that you're trying to reel in business here. But this is not the place. If you would like to pay for advertising space like a non-fraudulent businessman, then do so. As of now, you're just violating forum policy.

[afrauenfeld]

We do unfortunately not sell anything that you could buy - as what we do is simply educating others about the downfall of corrective vision. This is a forum about success stories, and a diet as suggested by the paleo concept has been very successful contributing to rehabilitating vision.

In fact, we have found that the single largest destructive factor in rehab is sugar. We are faced with lots of attempts at sabotaging our attempt at reforming vision treatment by big lens producers. I would assume that a venue such as this is ideal for creating more dialog about vision, with a community of individuals who have taken an individualist stance towards health and diet.

Thank you for your suggestion of buying advertising space. If we ever end up with an online marketed product, I'm sure this would be a great avenue. We actually have been playing with a tablet based application for the vision rehab exercise but lawyers tell us that we'd open ourselves to a great deal of potential legal challenges. Therefore at the moment, all you are finding here is discussion about vision.

You seem like an actual person. And it's cute that you're trying to reel in business here. But this is not the place. If you would like to pay for advertising space like a non-fraudulent businessman, then do so. As of now, you're just violating forum policy.