Glaucoma is a degenerative disease that affects some 4 million people in the United States and accounts for 10 percent of all cases of blindness, according to researchers at Jackson Laboratory and Harvard Medical School. In some cases, an inability to produce a specialized protein or mutations in protein production are underlying causes. Dietary protein does not directly affect glaucoma, but a healthy diet provides essential nutrients to the delicate structures within your eye to help them fight damage from free radicals that can lead to glaucoma.
Definition
Glaucoma is a family of eye diseases characterized by damage to the optic nerves --- the pathway between your eyes and your brain. Typically, you suffer a loss of peripheral vision and your visual perception becomes increasingly narrow, similar to looking at the world through a series of progressively smaller soda straws. Eventually, you may become blind. In most cases, the cause is an increase of pressure within the eye, either from excess fluid buildup or from an inability to drain fluid effectively.
Protein and Eye Pressure
Proteins within the internal structures of your eye work together as a complex, or team, that controls the production and drainage of fluid within your eye. In some cases, however, genetic mutations alter the structure of these proteins and prevent them from joining the complex team, according to the National Institutes of Health information website "Genetics Home Reference." These defective "orphan" protein pieces may build up in your eye and interfere with fluid drainage, which raises your eye pressure and eventually may lead to glaucoma.
Stress Granules
A combined research team from Jackson Laboratories and Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School discovered that people and animals who lacked a particular ocular protein had a reduced ability to produce stress granules, which protect your eye structures when they are exposed to stress from free radicals. The researchers believe that a lack of stress granules makes some people more prone to damage in the eye tissues responsible for fluid drainage. This damage builds up with increasing age, which is why glaucoma often appears later in life.
Diet and Lifestyle
If you have glaucoma, you need treatment to control the disease and prevent eventual blindness. You can support your body's efforts to stave off or slow the progression of the disease with a healthy diet, exercise and supplements, including vitamin C, Omega-3 oils and alpha lipoic acid. Reduce your alcohol and sugar intake to help keep your eye tissue healthy. If you smoke, kick the habit because smoking significantly increases your risk of damage to eye tissue.
Eye Exercises
Like any organ, the eye needs exercise to function optimally. If you work at a computer or do close-up work for prolonged periods of time, stop and look across the room or out the window and focus on a distant object several times per hour. Close work requires your eye muscles to bend your lenses and looking in the distance allows the muscles to relax and reduces strain. Optometrist Marc Grossman recommends a minimum of 20 minutes of sunlight exposure per day to exercise your eyes' ability to sense light.
References
- Genetics Home Reference: Early-onset Glaucoma
- Georgia Health Sciences University: Glaucoma's Unique Protein Expression Could Enhance Diagnosis and Treatment
- National Glaucoma Research: Researchers Find Eye Development Error Causing Cataracts and Glaucoma
- "Science"; Mutations in the RNA Granule Component TDRD7 Cause Cataract and Glaucoma; Lachke, Salil et al; March 2011.
- Natural Eye Care: Glaucoma: Keeping Your Vision Young & Healthy Naturally; Marc Grossman, O.D., L.Ac.
