Just as we’ve been told that eating our broccoli will make us strong like Popeye, drinking milk every day will give us whiter teeth, and an apple a day will keep the doctor away, we have always been nagged by our mums to eat our carrots because they improve our eyesight. Now what’s common between all these statements? They are all food myths.
Despite the old wives’ tale being yet another myth, there is still a small brink of truth in the statement, and that’s what I’ll be discussing about today.
How good our vision is can be determined by a handful of different scientific factors: the lens controls the manner in which light rays enter, the capillary muscles control the shape of said lens, photopigments sitting at the back of your eyes detect light, the retina converts light into nerve signals to be sent to your brain, and so forth.
Many people have said that eating carrots can recover our eyesight, but what aspect of our eye is it that’s actually improved? Carrots are rich with healthy concentrations of vitamin A. There are two types of vitamin A, with one of them being retinol. Retinol can be converted into retinene, and retinene is an important molecule that is required to produce photopigments that are found in the retina. But what does this exactly mean? The more photopigments you have sitting at the back of your eyes the more lights that enter your eyes can be converted into nervous impulses to be sent to your brain. While eating a lot of carrots may not necessarily rebuild and amend your sight in general, it can actually improve your night vision. When you’re in a dark room, there is less light entering your retina but your photopigments can make up for that by converting more of the thin light into impulses your brain can process.
So yes, eating carrots does refine your vision, that is your night vision only, but it’s not the inevitable method to go through if you’re looking to wholly polish your eyesight. A diet deficient in vitamin A can lead to night blindness and other eye problems, sure, but that doesn’t mean a bigger intake than the norm will make things better than it can optimally be. That is because eating carrots and sources with vitamin A such as lipids found in fish oil will improve your night vision, but not if you already have a balanced diet.
As I have mentioned before, the capillary muscles in your eyes are always under constant work. Staring at computer screens, reading books with tiny fonts, writing, or even looking at the mirror after long hours in the bed will put constant strain in your eyes. The more your eyes are exposed to strain, the more your capillary muscles will start to wear out and get tired, eventually losing their efficiency. So what can we do to remove such strain from our eyes? In this article I will provide you with two easy and rather similar exercises that can help do just the job.
