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dicator of our state of well-being. The retina has the highest metabolism of any tissue, thus demanding more oxygen than any other. When breathing is not full and relaxed, for example, when people with visual stress tend to hold their breath when staring to discern visual details, peripheral vision and retinal performance can suffer.

The eyes are like beacons resting atop the tower of the spine and skeletal framework. When the spine is out of alignment, visual centering is necessarily destabilized or at least stressed. And likewise, visual asymmetries and stresses of ocular orientation in space produce adaptive responses through the musculature of the neck, spine and body which result in the tendency to hold chronically warped body postures.

Several teams of chiropractors and behavioral optometrists have found that by applying the two modalities in immediate succession, changes previously thought unattainable, both in vision and in body structure, have become commonplace. While these investigations are not widely disseminated yet, it is common knowledge that much of the enervation affecting vision takes place through the spinal cord. For example, part of the regulation of the pupil passes through the thoracic vertebral segments (mid-back), while the cervical (neck) area supplies sympathetic enervation to the eye area. Similarly, control systems based on light information from the eyes must often pass through the spinal cord to reach their ultimate destinations; for example, the control of the pineal gland, which secretes melatonin in the dark, is regulated by nerve information from the eyes that must pass first through the neck before re-entering the head where the pineal is located.

Obviously, stresses such as subluxations, which can place mechanical stress on these nerve fibers and reduce the flow of information, will have a deleterious effect on this visual function. Also, research at Dartmouth College has shown that the muscles of the neck are directly linked to aniseikonia, a difference in the perceived image size from the two eyes, a visual condition previously thought to be purely optical. Further work by Professor Elliot Forest at the State University of New York, State College of Optometry showed that body posture and related asymmetries in eye movement patterns were directly linked to changes in astigmatism, involving asymmetrical changes in the shape of the eyeball itself.

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Nutrition

And what of nutrition? Certainly the eyes need it and their health is dependent not only on what one eats, but how one digests, absorbs, utilizes and excretes. Heavy metals, pesticides, food additives (e.g., MSG, which has been linked to glaucoma) and other toxins abound in our food, air and water today. Over 70,000 toxic chemicals are now being produced that never existed before in the environment for which our bodies were designed. Americans eat refined food, which has been robbed of the fiber that is essential for proper digestion. As Americans get older, they tend to have weaker and weaker digestive powers and produce fewer enzymes, thus extracting fewer nutrients from their foods.

We need to care for our diet and digestive systems as the lifeline that they are. And this is nowhere more essential than for vision and the eyes. The eyes require one of the highest levels of zinc anywhere in the body. And the highest level of vitamin C and oxygen . . . and on and on. Healthy eyes demand a healthy body.

The eyes are in fact the windows to changes happening elsewhere in the body. High blood pressure and diabetes are just two conditions that effect changes in the eyes; others include impurities in the bloodstream, hardening of the arteries, stagnation in the liver, problems with digestion and elimination and poor circulation. All of these things, along with other bodily imbalances form the basis of eye disease. It is important to remember that the health of the eyes cannot be better than the state of the vital organs of the body.

Ill health anywhere in the body clearly shows up in the eyesnot once but twice. It is mapped on the iris, independently discovered by two physicians in different parts of Europe, and it is mapped in the white of the eye, an observation first made by Native Americans. Modern energetic medicine is further mapping relationships between the various parts of the eye and the rest of the body, as does Traditional Chinese Medicine. In Chinese medicine, the five elements and the organs relating to them correspond to the eyes in the following manner:

KidneysPupil, aqueous humor, lens, vitreous, retina, optic nerves, choroid

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The more we learn of the body's natural interconnectedness, the more we realize that interconnectedness is the essence of the body and how it works. It is not some quirky side effect of a random evolution, but the infinitely intricate weaving of an intelligence great enough to create life itself.

Water

Another factor that is as important as nutrition but perhaps even more often overlooked, is water. First of all, we need enough of it. Eight eight-ounce glasses a day is often recommended. But in actuality, our bloodstream can only handle being diluted by about four ounces at any one time, so any additional will go immediately to the kidneys to be filtered out to maintain the osmotic balance of the blood. This means more work for the kidneys to filter water that hasn't even had the chance to filter through the lymph system and clean the body's tissues. This process takes about a half hour, so actually we should drink 16 four-ounce glasses of water a day, on a half-hourly schedule. After about three days on such a schedule, even your kidneys will start to adapt and function more efficiently than before.

Is all water the same? Emphatically not. In studies of the relationship of water to health, it's been found that it is the energy balance of the water that most influenced health and disease. This is determined largely by two factors: the pH (acid-alkaline balance) and the ORP (oxidation-reduction potential). The pH actually measures protons, the body's smallest positive ion (electrically charged particle). The ORP is a measure of electrons, the smallest negatively charged ion. For rejuvenating effects to reverse the ravages of aging and disease, we need to drink water that is low in protons, but rich in electrons. Such water acts, in itself, as an antioxidant. And since the human body is made up of about 70 percent water (the blood is 90 percent water), this is a powerful force against the attack

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of free radicals associated with processes of inflammation and degeneration, such as in glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataracts and even pink eye and dry eye syndromes.

In fact, every disease is now believed to ultimately do its damage by way of these free radicals, which like little fires in our cells, can be quenched by electron donors called antioxidants. Free radicals are often caused by an excess of toxins or even metabolic wastes, which are typically acid (high in protons). When the water of the body is alkaline (low in protons), this provides more room for wastes before they build up to damaging levels.

Two types of water treatment are available today that meet these criteria for a truly healing water. They are Alkamine Coral Calcium water and Alkaline Microwater (contact the Remission Foundation; see Resources). Microwater technology produces a high-tech healing water, which is actually able to penetrate into body tissues, cells and lymph channels, about ten times better than regular water. This is extremely beneficial in bringing needed nutrition to the cells, and also in carrying away wastes, which is particularly critical in hard-to-reach areas that lack direct circulation, like the joints and the lens of the eye. These waters are also crucial in problems related to circulation like diabetes, hypertension, glaucoma and macular degeneration.

The Role of the Thyroid in Eye Health

One of the relationships that has been found to be particularly important to vision is that of the thyroid gland in regulating the body's basal energy metabolism. When thyroid function is low, the liver does not have enough energy to break beta-carotene down into vitamin A, a process necessary to support night vision, comfortable adaptation to bright lights, a comfortable moisturizing ability on the front surface of the eyes and sometimes even daytime focusing of the eyes. Hypothyroidism is also associated with macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy and low-pressure glaucoma.

If you are hypothyroid, consume foods that are naturally high in iodine, such as fish, kelp and root vegetables such as potatoes. Avoid foods that naturally slow down the functioning of the thyroid such as Brussels sprouts, mustard greens, broccoli, turnips, kale and other members of the cabbage family. Avoid sulfa drugs and antihistamines, which aggravate this problem. If you are on thy-