Glaucoma is the second main reason for blindness on the planet. Worldwide, an estimated 80 million individuals are affected, and prevalence is rising.1 Glaucoma develops when excessive stress in your eye (ocular hypertension2) damages the optic nerve. Peripheral imaginative and prescient is impacted first, adopted by central imaginative and prescient.
Ocular hypertension happens when the entrance of your eye fails to empty fluid correctly, thereby inflicting stress to construct and put stress on the optic nerve. Elements that increase your danger for ocular hypertension embody:
Household historical past of ocular hypertension or glaucoma
Diabetics and people with hypertension
Folks over 40
Blacks and Hispanics
Myopia (nearsightedness)
Lengthy-term steroid use
Earlier eye accidents or eye surgical procedures
These with pigment dispersion syndrome or pseudoexfoliation syndrome
The one identified method to forestall and/or cease the development of glaucoma is to decrease the stress within the eye. Therapy choices embody medication, lasers, laceration surgical procedure, oral medicines, dietary dietary supplements, herbs and different plant treatments, a number of of which I’ll overview under.
Remember the fact that lack of imaginative and prescient is often the primary and solely symptom of glaucoma, so it’s essential to get a radical eye examination by an ophthalmologist to find out in case your ocular stress is elevated, which might make you a candidate for glaucoma. As soon as imaginative and prescient loss happens, the harm to your optic nerve is irreversible.
The Ocular Hypertension Therapy Research (OHTS)
Being identified with ocular hypertension doesn’t imply you’re destined to develop glaucoma, however it does considerably increase your danger, because it’s the first underlying trigger. The Ocular Hypertension Therapy Research (OHTS), which started in 1994, has additionally recognized different danger elements that may assist decide your danger for glaucoma. As reported by Harvard Well being:3
“The researchers enrolled a various group of 1,636 contributors with ocular hypertension from 22 websites throughout the US. To review glaucoma prevention, contributors had been randomly assigned to start out both early eye pressure-lowering eye drops (medicine group) or shut statement (management group).
At 5 years the information confirmed that 4.4% of contributors developed glaucoma within the medicine group, in comparison with 9.5% within the management group. This tells us that early use of medicated eye drops helps delay over 50% of glaucoma instances in individuals with ocular hypertension.
Throughout later phases of the research, the management group might obtain eye pressure-lowering medicines to see whether or not beginning medicine later might nonetheless delay glaucoma; it did.
At 20 years, about 49% of these within the management group and 42% of these within the medicine group developed glaucoma. Nonetheless, because the research was not randomized, the researchers had been unable to check the 20-year danger discount between the preliminary beginning teams …
Glaucoma danger, it turned out, didn’t rely solely on eye stress and race, however on a mixture of examination findings. This info helps information clinicians in figuring out whether or not an individual with ocular hypertension is at a low, medium, or increased danger for growing glaucoma. Having such info might assist individuals determine when to start utilizing medicated eye drops to forestall imaginative and prescient loss or sluggish its progress.”
Other than excessive eye stress, different elements that affect a person’s danger for growing glaucoma had been discovered to incorporate:
Older age
Thinner corneas
Bigger optic nerve cup sizes
Low preliminary peripheral imaginative and prescient take a look at scores
Therapy Options
If you happen to’re identified with ocular hypertension, notably in case you additionally produce other danger elements listed above, your ophthalmologist might prescribe eye pressure-lowering eye drops, oral medicine and/or selective laser trabeculoplasty (SLT).4
SLT is a five-minute process carried out at your ophthalmologist’s workplace, the place a low-energy laser is pulsed into particular cells in your eye. Your physique’s pure therapeutic response then does the remaining by rebuilding these cells. The rebuilding course of routinely reduces the intraocular stress and improves drainage.
Research have additionally proven that sure natural treatments, plant extracts5 and dietary dietary supplements will be useful, though most standard docs know little or no, if something, about these merchandise.
Melatonin Lowers Intraocular Strain
Melatonin, for instance, has been proven to decrease intraocular stress in sufferers with glaucoma. Topics who took 2 mg of melatonin each day at 10:30 p.m. for 90 days, skilled a number of advantages, together with:6
Elevated stability of systemic circadian rhythm through improved part alignment and alignment with intraocular stress
Decreased intraocular stress
Improved operate of retinal ganglion cells in these with superior glaucoma
Enhancements to sleep and temper, notably in these with superior glaucoma
Apparently, these researchers7 prompt that glaucoma might, the truth is, be a sort of neurodegenerative illness, and harm to retinal ganglion cells impacts not solely imaginative and prescient but additionally circadian rhythms and sleep, which melatonin helps regulate.
Melatonin receptors exist in a number of areas of your eyes, together with the retina, lens, and cornea. This hints at melatonin’s significance for regulating eye processes, notably when stress homeostasis is concerned.
Its useful results on the eyes can maybe be defined greatest by the truth that melatonin receptors exist in a number of areas of your eyes, together with the retina, lens and cornea.8 This hints at melatonin’s significance for regulating eye processes, notably when stress homeostasis is concerned. As defined in a March 2020 paper printed in Progress in Retinal and Eye Analysis:9
“Glaucoma, probably the most prevalent eye illness, also called the silent thief of imaginative and prescient, is a multifactorial pathology that’s related to age and, typically, to intraocular hypertension (IOP). Certainly IOP is the one modifiable danger issue …
Melatonin and analogues lower IOP in each normotensive and hypertensive eyes. Melatonin prompts its cognate membrane receptors, MT1 and MT2, that are current in quite a few ocular tissues, together with the aqueous-humor-producing ciliary processes.
Melatonin receptors belong to the superfamily of G-protein-coupled receptors and their activation would result in completely different signaling pathways relying on the tissue … The present work highlights the essential position of melatonin and its analogues within the wholesome and within the glaucomatous eyes, with particular consideration to the management of intraocular stress.”
Personally, I query the timing of the melatonin within the above research at 10:30 p.m. In my opinion that’s removed from a perfect time to sleep and about two hours later than I personally do. The opposite concern of concern is that it’s unclear if these authors had been conscious that the best manufacturing of melatonin will not be the pineal, however the mitochondria, when uncovered to infrared gentle.
It will be fascinating to check the outcomes of their 2 mg 10:30 p.m. protocol versus one hour of sunshine round photo voltaic midday in a heat local weather.
Melatonin’s Results Have Been Identified for A long time
The impact of melatonin on intraocular stress has been identified for many years, but most standard docs are nonetheless groping in the dead of night. In 1988, researchers with Oregon Well being Sciences College uncovered topics to vivid gentle to suppress serum melatonin ranges, after which supplemented with melatonin to gauge its impact on intraocular stress.10 A major connection was discovered:11
“Our information means that in the course of the interval of melatonin’s biggest ranges within the serum, IOP is lowest. All topics had most pressures kind 4 p.m. to six p.m. and most topics had minimums from 2 a.m. to five a.m.
In experiment one, vivid gentle suppression of melatonin secretion attenuated the early morning fall IOP. This was statistically important at suggesting that melatonin is concerned in reducing early morning IOP.
In experiment one, there was solely partial suppression of melatonin manufacturing with vivid gentle and consequently there was no important distinction in IOP between topics uncovered to dim gentle and vivid gentle.
Nonetheless, administering 200 micrograms (one-fifth of 1 mg) of melatonin orally brought on a big lower in IOP. Intraocular stress remained low for roughly 4 hours after the final dose.”
Lutein Protects In opposition to Glaucoma and Different Eye Ailments
Lutein is one other nutrient that’s actually essential for eye well being and helps to guard towards age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, glaucoma and different eye illnesses.
Lutein concentrates in your macula, which is the a part of your retina accountable for central imaginative and prescient. Together with zeaxanthin and mesa-zeaxanthin (a metabolite of lutein), these three carotenoids kind the retinal macular pigment, which not solely is accountable for optimizing your visible efficiency but additionally serves as a biomarker for the chance of macular illnesses.12
Lutein can be discovered within the lens, the place it helps defend towards cataracts and different age-related eye illnesses. Amongst carotenoids, lutein is probably the most environment friendly at filtering out blue gentle — the sort that comes from cellphones, computer systems, tablets and LED lights. Blue gentle induces oxidative stress in your eyes, which will increase the chance of cataracts and macular illnesses. Lutein, nevertheless, acts as a defend towards it.
Your physique can not make lutein, so you have to get it out of your food regimen. Following are 10 meals which are notably wealthy sources of lutein.
Darkish leafy greens
Carrots
Broccoli
Egg yolks
Pink and yellow peppers
Candy corn
Avocados
Raspberries
Cherries
Paprika
Lutein and different carotenoids are fat-soluble, so to optimize absorption make sure to eat it together with a supply of wholesome fats, resembling coconut oil or grass-fed butter. As a result of natural, pastured egg yolks include fats, they’re among the many healthiest sources of lutein.
Different Useful Cures
Sure herbs, plant extracts and nutritional vitamins have additionally proven promise within the remedy of glaucoma, together with:13
Ginkgo biloba — A 2013 research14 highlighted the advantages of ginkgo biloba, discovering it slowed the development of glaucoma. Forty-two sufferers with regular pressure glaucoma obtained 80 mg of ginkgo biloba extract twice a day and underwent 5 or extra visible discipline assessments over the course of no less than 4 years.
Imply follow-up was 12.3 years. Whereas intraocular pressures remained largely the identical after remedy, the visible discipline index considerably improved, particularly central discipline imaginative and prescient.
Chinese language skullcap — A 2021 research15 concluded that baicalein, a flavone present in skullcap root, successfully improved signs of glaucoma and diminished retinal ganglion cell apoptosis.
Bilberry — In animal analysis,16 bilberry extract was proven to forestall the dying of retinal ganglion cells in mice whose optic nerves had been crushed. The dosages given had been 100 mg per kilo of body weight per day and 500 mg/kg/day.
Inexperienced tea — A 2019 animal research discovered inexperienced tea extract helped defend retinal ganglion cells throughout ischemic situations (i.e., when blood move is restricted). As such, inexperienced tea extract could also be a viable therapeutic method for glaucoma and optic neuropathies.
A more moderen report,17 printed in 2022, proposed that average consumption of inexperienced tea or 400 mg of concentrated inexperienced tea extract per day would possibly profit people with elevated intraocular stress and people in danger for glaucoma.
Curcumin — In line with animal analysis18 printed in 2014, curcumin, a polyphenol discovered within the spice turmeric, can assist deal with glaucoma by limiting oxidative harm within the eye and reducing intraocular stress.
Vitamin B3 (nicotinamide) — Analysis19 printed in 2020 reported that glaucoma sufferers who took oral vitamin B3 skilled important enchancment in retinal operate. Sufferers within the remedy group obtained 1.5 grams of nicotinamide per day for six weeks, adopted by 3 grams a day for one more six weeks.