Dear Friends,
In this letter, I’m going to share 5 vision health nutrients we recommend taking because they provide more complete protection that support eyes from front to back.
As you may know, in the back part of the eye, it’s important to boost your protection against excess exposure to blue light waves.
Unlike other waves in the light spectrum, blue light can penetrate deep into the eye, reaching the back where the macula resides (it’s part of the retina). Over time, this exposure causes oxidative stress, which damages our vision and eye health.
The macula and retina are very important parts of our eyes because they play a big role in making central vision possible and helping you see with high resolution.
While blue light can cause age-related eye problems over time, the effects of excess blue light exposure can be problematic in the short term too - and increase eye strain, dry eyes, and make it more challenging for your eyes to function.
It used to be that our main exposure to blue light was the sun. Now we have all the digital screens in our lives – like computers, TVs, tablets and smart phones that also emit blue light.
In general, the brighter the screen, the greater the blue light being emitted.
The bottom line is we’re exposed to much more blue light these days, so we need to support our body’s natural protection.
Your Body’s Natural Protective Shield.
Our bodies naturally produce a yellow-colored macula pigment to help shield against the oxidation damage caused by blue light.
This protective pigment contains 3 nutrients with strong antioxidant properties that work together to shield cells in the macula from harmful blue light rays.
These nutrients are lutein, zeaxanthin and meso-zeaxanthin, which is a second form of zeaxanthin that’s not always included in supplements. You need all 3 nutrients because they work in different layers of the macula and will give you the best support.
While we can’t completely stop blue light damage as we age, with the help of these 3 nutrients we can pump the brakes a bit and slow down its effects by promoting greater macula pigment density.
The macula isn’t the only area in the back part of the eye that’s susceptible to oxidative stress as we age. The retina contains cells called photoreceptor cells that need antioxidant protection also.
Why Do Photoreceptor Cells Matter?
For your brain to determine what you’re looking at, your eyes must absorb light and convert it into signals (in the form of electric impulses) that are sent to your brain.
If you look at an image of the back of the eye, you’ll notice there’s an optic nerve that connects the eye to the brain.
The optic nerve takes the signals and messages that are converted by photoreceptor cells and transmits them to the brain. Your brain then figures out what you’re seeing (a pretty amazing process).
Unfortunately, photoreceptor cells are also vulnerable to oxidative stress, which hurts this process, and consequently our vision and ability to see.
How Can We Protect Photoreceptor Cells?
The potent antioxidant compounds in saffron have been shown to help protect photoreceptor cells from oxidative stress, making them tougher, more resilient, and less likely to die.
Research indicates that supplementing with a quality saffron extract can support retina and vision function in many ways, including:
• Promoting central vison.
• Supporting the ability to see in low light.
• Helping with color contrast and perception (important for night vision).
As a bonus, saffron can also help promote blood and oxygen flow in the eye and may help you maintain already-healthy intraocular eye pressure too.
For supplements, we recommend using a saffron extract specifically developed for eye heath called Affron Eye, which contains a good amount of the antioxidant compounds we need to support the photoreceptor cells, like crocin (which our bodies convert to crocetin).
Let’s now turn to the front part of the eye.
Flexing The Eye Lens Is Hard Work
The lens in the front part of your eye remains either flat or flexes, depending on the distance of the object at which you’re looking.
The shape of the lens is controlled by muscles in the ciliary body at the top and bottom of the lens. When you focus on distant objects, the muscles relax, and the lens flattens. This doesn’t require a lot of work for ciliary muscles.
However, when you focus on objects near to you, these ciliary muscles must contract to flex the lens, so you can focus. That’s a lot more work for these muscles – and they get tired.
When we focus on near objects for hours at a time, like a computer at work, a cell phone or tablet, or just reading a book, these muscles have to work extra hard – and that’s when eye fatigue, eye strain and tired eyes occur.
Unfortunately, this gets worse as we age because the lens of the eye becomes increasingly rigid, making it even harder for the ciliary muscles to flex the lens.
Natural Astaxanthin Helps Eye Fatigue and Strain
If you’re not familiar with astaxanthin, it’s one of nature’s most powerful antioxidants. It seems to have a particularly important role in supporting hard working muscles like the ciliary muscles in the eye, where astaxanthin is known to accumulate.
To date, 9 studies with the astaxanthin in our TrueAsta supplement have shown it can improve what’s called accommodation – which is the eye’s ability to focus between near and distant vision.
And several of these studies have shown a reduction in eye fatigue and eye strain. You can experience many other benefits with astaxanthin, but these are my personal favorites.
As mentioned, TrueAsta is made with the scientifically studied AstaReal astaxanthin, and you can find the other 4 eye nutrients we reviewed today in the TrueVision supplement.
We combine both TrueVision and TrueAsta in our popular Vision Support bundle, which offers you greater savings.
Hope you found this helpful!
Yours for Good Health,
Carl Pradelli
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