Save Your Sight!

by Marc R. Rose

• All of the cells conglomerated around the initial injury continue to produce growth factors, causing tissue to grow. Fibrous connective tissue develops to support it.

  • A fully developed lesion contains a cholesterol core. The rate at which lesions develop varies a great deal, so that some might become life-threatening in a year while others might be harmless for decades.

  • When a lesion is large enough to limit blood flow to crucial organs, these symptoms begin:

  • heart pain with activity, known as angina

  • problems with memory or movement

  • visual blackouts

  • the shooting pains of blocked blood vessels to the legs (intermittent claudication)

  • Stress on a lesion (as can happen with constriction of the artery or turbulent blood flow) can tear or rupture a lesion. Pieces of the plaque are set loose in the bloodstream, where they can become lodged in other vessels. This is often the cause of a heart attack or stroke.

  How to Reduce Injury to Blood Vessels

  Diseases of the blood vessels are largely caused by normal healing mechanisms gone awry. There’s a lot of exciting research going on that is showing us what truly reflects a person’s risk of blood vessel disease. We’re learning about the importance of antioxidants, homocysteine levels, fibrinogen levels, glutathione levels, and magnesium in determining your risk of cardiovascular disease. Understanding what puts you at risk will give you the tools to stay free of disease.

  Antioxidants

  The first event in the chain that leads to clogged blood vessels is some sort of injury to the smooth inner wall of the artery, the endothelium. This can be caused by many kinds of toxins, but the biggest culprits are cigarette smoking, exposure to pesticides and air pollutants, and rancid (oxidized) fats and hydrogenated oils. What is common to all of these is that they are major players in the production of free radicals. Antioxidant nutrients buffer harmful free radicals before they can damage your arteries. Lack of these vital nutrients, including vitamins C, E, beta-carotene, the bioflavonoids, selenium, and precursors to the body’s supply of glutathione, allows free-radical damage to run rampant in your body. After dozens of excellent studies, it’s clear that low levels of antioxidants significantly raise your risk of blood vessel disease.

  Homocysteine

  Homocysteine is an amino acid that is formed when your body metabolizes or processes methionine (an amino acid that’s part of protein foods). Homocysteine is toxic, and normally a healthy body breaks it down before it can build up. To keep homocysteine levels low, you need B vitamins, especially vitamin B12 and folic acid. Homocysteine levels rise when you’re nutritionally deficient and don’t get enough B vitamins, or enough choline and betaine, important factors that help B vitamins perform their functions. More than twenty studies on two thousand subjects have shown that homocysteine levels are higher than normal in people with heart disease.

  Magnesium

  Magnesium is a mineral that is plentiful in unprocessed, whole foods like grains, legumes, and colorful vegetables. Most of us don’t get anywhere near enough of it in our diets. A U.S. Department of Agriculture study showed that only 25 percent of 37,785 people were meeting the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) for magnesium (which is minimal to begin with). In one study, people suffering from high blood pressure or decreased strength of the heart, both signs of coronary artery clogging, were given intravenous magnesium, which lowered their blood pressure and reversed their heart muscle dysfunction. Magnesium helps to keep blood flowing smoothly, elevates HDL (“good” cholesterol) levels, helps maintain blood pressure, and regulates heart-beat. It helps keep your bloodstream free of harmful calcium that can deposit in artery lesions by promoting the absorption and metabolism of calcium. Magnesium works in opposition to the constricting effects of calcium throughout the body, helping to keep blood vessels relaxed and open. We all could use more magnesium, and if your diet includes processed foods, you’re not getting enough.

  Fibrinogen

  Fibrinogen is a component of your blood. It plays a role in clotting, which on the outside is the formation of a scab over a cut, for example. If there is too much fibrinogen in your blood, it becomes too sticky and can contribute to stopped-up blood vessels as well as build onto existing plaques along the arteries. If the oil in your car gets too thick and gummy, your car doesn’t run as well, and the blood in your body is no different. Fibrinogen, which like cholesterol is a vital substance, becomes harmful when you are under excessive stress, if you smoke, or if you are obese. Obviously, weight loss and quitting smoking are important steps to take to keep your arteries healthy, and stress reduction is a goal all of us strive towards.

  To lower your fibrinogen levels, try eating more cold-water fish, olive oil, garlic, and foods rich in fiber, especially whole grains. Some studies show promising effects of moderate amounts of alcohol, particularly red wine.

  Glutathione

  Glutathione is an antioxidant produced mainly in the liver, to the tune of about 14 g per day (about 3½ tsp.). It works synergistically with vitamin C and vitamin E. People who are healthy as they age have high levels of glutathione. In people suffering from heart disease, diabetes, and arthritis, the concentration of glutathione in the blood is low.

  This most basic antioxidant neutralizes free radicals and other toxins, stabilizes red blood cells, and improves the function of the immune system. Glutathione is one of the best-known promoters of eye health. Low glutathione levels are associated with nearly every type of eye disease. Since it is an unstable molecule that hasn’t successfully been stabilized for supplement use, the best way to raise your glutathione levels is through a good diet and the supplement N-acetyl cysteine, which is a building block of glutathione.

  Lysine and Proline

  The amino acids lysine and proline provide protection, along with vitamins C and E, to artery walls by removing accumulations of lipoprotein(a). According to the work of Linus Pauling and Mathias Rath, the lysine and proline make the normally sticky lipoprotein(a) smooth, so it can slip off the blood vessel wall.

  Roadblocks to Healthy Blood Vessels

  Instead of worrying so much about eliminating all fat and cholesterol from your diet, try to eliminate oils that easily become oxidized. Stick with stable vegetable oils like olive and canola. In small amounts saturated fats are not at all harmful. Coconut oil is certainly not the villain it’s been portrayed as by the vegetable oil industry, and it’s wonderful for baking. A little butter is also fine. Both coconut oil and butter are vastly preferable to the hydrogenated oils found everywhere in processed foods, which are just plain toxic to your blood vessels. The point is to keep your overall fat consumption moderate, or low if you have existing blood vessel disease, and avoid the unsaturated and hydrogenated oils.

  If you want healthy blood vessels, please stay away from that sugar bowl. In fact we suggest you put flowers in the sugar bowl. Put down that white-flour roll, that bagel, and ditch the white-flour spaghetti. Refined sugar, also called sucrose, and white flour (even the enriched kind) are both sources of calories without vitamins and minerals. Your body has to use its precious stores of nutrients to process these empty foods. Think of them as “anti-nutrients.” If you fill your belly with white flour and sugar, there’s less room for healthy, nutrient-dense foods, and you will be deficient in the nutrients essential to blood vessel health.

  Did you know that the number of cases of artery disease in a population is correlated more to sugar consumption than to fat or cholesterol consumption? A possible mechanism is in the depletion of crucial nutrients and the artery clogging that results. We don’t want you to become extreme about this. Sugar is OK in moderation. But that means a couple of times a week, not a couple of times a day.

  Stress

  When your body is subjected to chronic stress, the chemicals your body releases under stress become toxins, especially to your blood vessels. This is why we strongly recommend meditation, which reduces stress and helps us learn to k
eep our emotions balanced.

  Excess Estrogen

  Excessive estrogen, or estrogen not balanced by progesterone, can increase a woman’s risk of strokes caused by blood clots. It is also known to cause and aggravate eye problems, probably due to small clots in the blood vessels and capillaries of the eye, and has a tendency to cause edema, or water retention.

  Nutritional Prescription for Clear, Strong Blood Vessels

  Limit your consumption of white sugar, refined flour, and “bad” oils that are unstable and easily oxidized. Keep fat and oil intake moderate.

  Increase your intake of fiber-rich foods, especially whole grains and fresh vegetables. Increase your intake of glutathione-boosting foods: cold-water fish, eggs, asparagus, garlic, onion, and soy foods.

  Daily Supplements for Clear, Strong Blood Vessels

  Vitamin C: as recommended in your multivitamin, and up to 10,000 mg (10 g) if needed

  Vitamin E: as recommended in your multivitamin

  Magnesium: as recommended in your multivitamin

  Folic acid: as recommended in your multivitamin

  Vitamin B6: as recommended in your multivitamin

  Vitamin B3 (niacin) in the form of inositol hexani-cotinate: 100 mg

  Vitamin B12: 1,000–2,000 mcg, sublingually or intranasally

  N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC): 500 mg, 2–3 times

  Lysine: 300–500 mg, 3 times

  Proline: 300–500 mg, 3 times

  CoQ10: 30–90 mg

  Carnitine: 100–150 mg

  Betaine hydrochloride: a 250–300 mg tablet, increasing the amount if needed, with meals, to improve digestion and absorption of B vitamins

  * * *

  IN SHORT…

  1. Without a healthy circulatory system, the rest of your body can’t enjoy good health.

  2. Avoid pesticides, cigarettes, rancid oils, and sugar.

  3. Antioxidant supplementation is crucial for keeping your circulatory system healthy.

  4. Low levels of glutathione and other antioxidants, and high levels of homocysteine and fibrinogen, allow the body’s healing responses to get out of hand, creating blood-stopping clumps and lumps in the arteries.

  5. Magnesium is essential to healthy blood vessels.

  6. A summary of the nutritional “Rx” for healthy blood vessels can be found in Appendix I at the end of this book.

  * * *

  11

  Are Your Prescription Drugs Making You Go Blind?

  There are times when you need to use prescription drugs. In many instances they save lives and help people who are in great pain to get on with their lives without undue suffering. The other side of the coin is that we have become a culture that expects a miracle pill for every illness. Even the illnesses that can be avoided by lifestyle adjustments, that we ourselves are able to control without the aid of prescription drugs, are most commonly treated with powerful medications rather than good advice. Because drugs work so quickly and alleviate uncomfortable symptoms (usually without addressing the underlying problems), it seems we literally can have our cake and eat it, too. So why not live it up, eat whatever we like, neglect exercise, and pop some pills when our blood pressure rises and our blood cholesterol levels shoot through the roof?

  If you’ve gotten this far along in this book, you already know that prescription drugs can have very harmful effects on your body’s delicately balanced systems. Many commonly used prescription drugs can negatively affect nutrient levels, circulation, essential fatty acid balance, fluid balance, and kidney and liver function. The very powerful properties that make these substances work are what cause all this mayhem in your body.

  Most of the doctors who prescribe prescription drugs are trained to pluck a group of symptoms out of context, knowing next to nothing about how the patient eats or sleeps, whether he or she is in an abusive relationship or has money problems. When we talk to our patients about the medications they take every day, many of them know nothing about how the drugs work or what negative effects they can have. More often than not they don’t even know what the drugs they swallow daily are called, referring to them as “heart pills” or “cholesterol pills.” This is an indication that we have become too comfortable with this system, living the lifestyles that make us ill and expecting nothing less than magic pills to alleviate our suffering.

  This is not to say that medical doctors are not a knowledgeable group of professionals or a tremendously valuable resource. The point is that you need to be informed about what you are putting into your body. Take an active role in your own health care, questioning your physician, probing and digging for information. At the very least, read the package inserts in any drugs you take and ask the pharmacist to help you understand it thoroughly.

  Doctors are inconvenienced by patients who do this. Managed care has drastically cut the amount of time doctors can spend with patients simply talking and answering questions. Remember that the health care system is there for you and that you have every right to get as much support as you need.

  In John Robbins’ excellent book on health care, Reclaiming Our Health, he describes a study from Yale University run by Bernie Siegel, M.D. Patients who survive cancer, Dr. Siegel remarks, are those who shun the traditional role of passive patient. There was “a 100 percent correlation between the head nurse’s opinion of the patient and the long-term survival rates.” The patients who made the most trouble were those whose outcomes were the best!

  Look Out for Your Own Interests

  Pharmaceutical companies are billion-dollar industries focusing on the bottom line of profit. If a drug is potentially lucrative, testing for safety and efficacy can be cursory at best. Prozac, an antidepressant prescribed to millions of Americans, is a good example. Most patients on this drug take it for at least a few months, but 86 percent of the patients involved in the clinical trials of the drug were treated for three months or less. Not much was learned about Prozac’s long-term effects before it was approved. Now, with millions on the drug, it is becoming apparent that Prozac can permanently damage the systems it was designed to regulate and that severe rebound effects once the drug is stopped are not uncommon.

  Natural plant-derived substances such as vitamins and minerals cannot be patented, so they are not as profitable to manufacture and distribute as synthetic drugs. There is no incentive to research and develop safe, gentle natural medicines when the highly potent synthetic versions can be exclusively distributed for decades at high prices.

  Have you ever leafed through a medical journal? The pages are dotted with glossy, full-page ads for the latest prescription drugs. Representatives from drug companies visit hospitals and doctors’ offices to peddle their wares to physicians, handing them free samples for their patients. Drug companies pay leading researchers huge sums of money for studies crafted to prove their latest creations work; they provide honorariums for continuing medical education lectures and contract physicians as “consultants” for huge salaries.

  The only way for you to get out of this loop is to be well informed and to take charge of your own health. Avoid taking prescription drugs whenever you can, choosing instead to use gentler remedies such as changes in diet, herbs, supplements, and other natural therapies. If you need to use antibiotics to cure a serious infection or if you need a short course of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs to get through a bad spell of arthritis pain, or if you need to have chemotherapy for cancer, do so. Know all there is to know about potential side effects and drug interactions and get back to a drug-free life as quickly as you can. (But never stop a medication you’ve been taking without consulting with your doctor.)

  In the rest of this chapter we’re going to talk specifically about which prescription drugs can cause or worsen eye problems, and can result in loss of vision.

  Know Your Medicines

  Prescription drugs are known by their generic name and their brand name. For example, Advil is the brand name for ibuprofen and acetaminophen is the generic name for Tylenol. Once
the patent expires on a drug, other companies have the right to manufacture and sell it under its generic name or other brand names. Some of the other brand names for ibuprofen or drug combinations that include ibuprofen are Motrin, Genpril, Haltran, Midol, and Nuprin. In the information we give you will be the generic name and one of the more common brand names.

  It’s important to know both the generic and brand name of any drug you use. Look at the bottles to find out what the substance is called, or ask your doctor or pharmacist to give it to you. If you can’t remember them or pronounce them, write them on a slip of paper you keep in your wallet or purse. In any medical emergency it’s important for those who care for you to know what drugs are in your system, so that dangerous drug interactions can be avoided.

  Drugs That Negatively Affect Nutrients

  You already know that good nutrition is the most important step you can take for healthy eyes. Problems can arise when you take prescription drugs that affect the absorption or transport of these vital nutrients. Whether by disrupting fluid balance, flushing needed minerals from the body (both characteristic of diuretic blood pressure medication), or carrying fat-soluble vitamins out of the body unabsorbed (as do the drugs used to lower high blood cholesterol), these drugs rob your eyes of needed vitamins and minerals and can affect vision adversely.

  Drugs to Lower Blood Pressure

  Diuretics are very commonly prescribed to lower blood pressure, which they do by decreasing the fluid volume in the blood vessels and making you urinate more frequently. One of the negative effects of diuretics is that minerals are lost with all that urination, and minerals are essential to good circulation and thus to good eye health. With some diuretics, retention of calcium in the body is increased, while too much magnesium is lost in the urine. Calcium is a vasoconstrictor (it causes blood vessels to constrict), and if it isn’t properly balanced with the vasodilating mineral magnesium, circulation can be impeded. That means trouble for your eyes.