Many
of us heard, as children, that carrots are good for our
eyes. When questioned about this, moms would regularly
retort with a well known question: “Well, have you ever
seen a rabbit wearing glasses?” 
Carrots are certainly a potent whole food with many
wonderful health benefits, but the latest research
indicates that fruit is even more important for the
nutritional support of your eyes and vision. A recent
study published in the June 2004 issue of the Archives
of Ophthalmology indicates that eating 3 or more
servings of fruit per day may lower your risk of
age-related
macular degeneration (ARMD), the primary
cause of vision loss in older adults, by 36%, compared
to persons who consume less than 1.5 servings of fruit
daily.
In
this study, which involved over 70,000 women and over
40,000 men, researchers evaluated the effect of
consumption of fruits; vegetables; the antioxidant
vitamins A, C, and E; and carotenoids on the development
of early ARMD or neovascular ARM, a more severe form of
the illness associated with vision loss.
Food
intake information was collected periodically for up to
18 years for women and 12 years for men. While,
surprisingly, intakes of vegetables, antioxidant
vitamins and carotenoids were not strongly related to
incidence of either form of ARM, fruit intake was
definitely protective against the severe form of this
vision-destroying disease.
