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roid medication, increase calcium supplementation. Also increase daily consumption of foods high in vitamin B complex, such as whole grains, raw nuts and seeds.

Since the thyroid regulates the basal metabolic rate, one way to check for this is to measure body temperature first thing on waking in the morning before even sitting up in bed or opening your eyes (your brain temperature immediately rises several degrees when you open your eyes in the morning). If your temperature is low (below 97.8°F.) talk to your health practitioner about taking a thyroid glandular supplement in addition to iodine, copper and zinc, as well as supplementing with preformed vitamin A and beta-carotene.

Zinc is also needed for proper vitamin A metabolism which affects night vision, wound healing, dry eye symptoms, immunity and many other functions. Zinc also affects glandular function, such as thyroid activity. Check your zinc level with a zinc taste test. Eighty-five percent of people with low zinc levels can raise them to normal in four weeks. The other 15 percent usually have parasite problems that need to be cleared first.

The bottom line is that checking both basal metabolism and zinc status are important pieces of the puzzle in understanding and correcting eye health imbalances. The following chapter explores more fully the role that nutrition plays in eye health and how TCM, herbal and homeopathic remedies and eye exercises can help.

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Chapter 1

Seeing Better Naturally: Treating Eye Disorders Holistically

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Medical science doesn't really know why or how most poor eyesight develops, yet it wrongly believes that eyesight almost always worsens, that it rarely improves by itself, and that once eyesight starts to go, nothing can be done about it; all we can do is stand idly by as it deteriorates. The good news is that we don't have to be passive victims of eye disease. Eye deterioration can often be stopped and even reversed. Throughout this book, we're going to tell you how.

Holistically, you are more than an interesting set of symptoms that must be eradicated with the proper drug. You are a complex human being functioning on several levels: mental, emotional, spiritual and physical. In holistic medicine, we take all of these levels into consideration when we treat a patient, because we believe that merely quelling the physical symptoms of disease doesn't address how that disease impacts and emerges from all of those other levels of your being.

In this chapter, we will discuss the various treatments we use in helping people with eye problems. In subsequent chapters that focus on the individual eye diseases, we will discuss the specific treatment for each problem. These treatments nutrition, Traditional Chinese Medicine, acupressure, herbs, physical exercise, eye exercises, spinal adjustments and homeopathy each support a holistic way of viewing eye problems and offer natural methods of balancing the multifacéted cause of disease.

Nutrition

When Mom and Dad told you to eat your carrots because they were good for your eyes, they were on the right track. As researchers continue to document that we really are what we eat, the role of nutrition in eye health becomes clearer and more important all the time.

Consider these facts: More than 25 percent of the nutrients we absorb from our food go to nourish our ''visual system'' our eyes and all of the nerves, blood vessels and tissues that support our vision. Indeed, the concentration of vitamin C in healthy eyes is higher than almost anywhere else in the body. 1 It's not surprising, then, that proper nutrition plays an important role in preventing and treating problems such as cataracts, macular degeneration, glaucoma and dry eyes.

What do we mean when we talk about good nutrition? First and foremost, we mean balance; it is essential to eat a variety of whole foods. The body does not use each vitamin and mineral in isolation. The absence of one nutrient can

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affect the body's ability to use another. For example, proper amounts of magnesium and vitamin D are needed to absorb and utilize calcium efficiently. Without adequate levels of zinc, the body cannot utilize all of the vitamin A it receives. Similarly, the B vitamins are needed together, working properly only as a team.

Eating a variety of whole foods and omitting sweets and other junk foods will help ensure that you're getting a wide range of nutrients. The body can lose a significant amount of nutrients when we eat nutrient-poor foods. For example, we lose chromium and B vitamins as our body tries to burn white sugar. Caffeine, medications and preservatives also deplete the vitamins and minerals that are needed for healthy eyes and good vision.

Yet, in today's world, it is probably not realistic to expect to get all of our nutrients from food alone. No matter how wholesome and pure our food might be, there are other factors that affect its nutrient content: how it is grown, how it is stored and how it is cooked all affect nutrient levels. Besides, science determines the nutrient value of food under ideal laboratory conditions. What your body actually absorbs can be very different. Your age, health, activity and stress levels also can affect what your body needs and how well it's using the nutrients from your diet. For example, both aging and reduced liver health are associated with increasing eye problems because they reduce the absorption and utilization of key nutrients from food.

This is where supplements come in handy. And it's likely that you will need more than the Recommended Dietary Allowances set by the government for healthy people. We routinely recommend vitamin and mineral supplements to our patients, but simply taking vitamin pills and ignoring the benefits of good food isn't the answer either.

The Vision Diet

Throughout this book, we will discuss in depth the role of nutrition in six common eye problems: cataracts, glaucoma, macular degeneration, floaters, sties and conjunctivitis. Although each problem has its own particular nutrition requirements, let's set some general guidelines. First, eliminate foods on the outside of the food target (see p. 12) and emphasize foods toward the center.

The diet we recommend for the treatment of eye disease is one that maintains a healthy balance of body chemistry. See the following guidelines from nutritional biochemist Jay D. Foster. 2