As the years go by, many of us will experience problems with our eyes. Cataracts are very common in elderly people, and many of us will also have to use glasses or contact lenses as our eyesight is affected with old age. However, this is not always inevitable.
In fact, there are a number of things that you can do to help look after your eyes and keep them in better health as you get older, and here are a few of the most effective.
Protect Your Eyes from the Sun
UV rays can damage our eyes, especially following exposure over many years. It therefore makes sense to keep your eyes protected as much as possible.
This primarily means wearing a good pair of sunglasses every time you go out in the sun. The more you protect them, the less chance you will need to get treatment for cataracts when you are older.
Stay In Good Health
You may not associate keeping healthy with maintaining good eye health, but the two are related. Keeping to a healthy weight can reduce the risk of diabetes, for example, which can cause serious damage to your eyes and even blindness. So make sure you stay healthy and exercise regularly to reduce the risk.
And if you smoke, try to quit. Smoking has many harmful effects on your health, and it is also responsible for causing eye problems.
Eat the Right Foods
If you eat a healthy diet you will be doing your eyes a favour as well as the rest of your body. There are many foods that are particularly important for eye health, so making sure you get these in your diet can help you to avoid eye problems later in life.
Eat foods like carrots (beta-carotene), citrus fruits (vitamin C), poultry and pork (zinc), fish (omega-3), eggs (glutathione) and leafy vegetables (vitamin E), and these can help to keep your eyes in good health.
Get Your Eyes Checked Regularly
Finally, make sure you go for regular eye checks, at least once every two years. Your optometrist will be able to spot the early signs of problems, and they can then treat them sooner to prevent more serious problems from occurring. This is far more effective than waiting until warning signs become more serious, by which time it could be too late.
Going for regular checks could also help to reduce the need to receive treatment like laser eye surgery later in life (check out this source for more info on laser surgery).
Look After Your Eyes
While there is no way to guarantee you will not suffer from problems with your eyesight as you age, these methods can all help to keep your eyes in the best possible health. By following these simple steps, you can help to ensure you are doing everything possible to keep your eyes in good condition so that you are less likely to require treatment when you are older.
Libby Atkins is a young woman interested in natural medicine and keeping her body as healthy as possible through the food she eats. She writes articles on this topic during her spare time.