When it comes to taking care of our eyes, sometimes we all need a little bit of help from within. Vitamins and supplements help to build a protective shield from inside our bodies, ensuring that good eyesight is your reward.

Vitamins are all the rage these days. We use them to fight colds and flu; to strengthen our bones; to protect our teeth; and to fight loss of hair and regrowth of hair. We also use vitamins to help strengthen our eyes. Our eyes need vitamins and nutrients in order to stay strong and healthy. The secret is in knowing which vitamins, and in which quantities, will best affect one’s vision. In the end, what you eat - or what you don’t eat - can either help or harm your eyes and it’s important to watch out for these things in order to maintain your sight.

Just to understand the full importance and need for vitamins, take a look at this little fact: when comparing non-users to users, the risk for cataracts is 60% lower among persons who use multivitamins or any supplement containing vitamin C or E for more than 10 years.

Before we go ahead into explaining the benefits of some vitamins and minerals, it should be noted that supplements should only be used only when your diet does not give you the recommended amount of nutrients and daily multivitamins that you need for good eye health. Always speak to your doctor first - both your family doctor and your eye doctor - in order to understand exactly which dose will be best for you. Don’t take this lightly, overdosing or under-dosing can have contradictory effects on your health. Some supplements or vitamins may have opposite effects on your eyes because of other illnesses in your body, or other medications that you may be taking. For example, smokers and ex-smokers should not take beta-carotene, as there has been a link between beta-carotene use and lung cancer among smokers. Here’s another example, those taking blood thinners - which reduces the ability of the body to clot - should not ingest large amounts of leafy greens because the greens contain Vitamin K, the precise vitamin that blood thinners try to block.

Let’s look at some vitamins and the positive effects they could have on your eyesight:

Vitamin C: Long thought to only fight colds and flu BUT actually helps to strengthen your eyesight an prevent the onset of macular degeneration and fights cataracts. Try eating foods such as sweet potatoes, red ripe tomatoes, kale, broccoli and oranges.

For chronic dry eye, try consuming flaxseed oil, fish oil, beta carotene and primrose oil, or use artificial tears.

Zinc is another macular degeneration fighter but it’s unhealthy and dangerous in supplement form as large doses can interfere with your body's absorption of copper. However, it’s an important vitamin for the good of your eyes, so enrich your diet with foods like: oysters, red meat, and liver for a real zinc-boost; or, brewer's yeast, milk, beans, and wheat germ if you want to absorb it in smaller amounts.

Lutein is a critical vitamin for long term eye health as it filters out dangerous UV rays which cause loss of vision; while vitamin A also works against the formation of cataracts.

All in all, there are a number of vitamins, minerals (green leafy vegetable ingredients) and herbs that people use to prevent the development of cataract, glaucoma, macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. However, most of these vitamins are not a cure unless taken over a very long period. They cannot and will not restore vision already lost, they can merely slow down the development of the diseases and hopefully keep you with a stable eyeglasses prescription. Just remember that if your eyes do worsen, don’t wait to buy glasses - seeing out of the correct prescription lenses is just as important for protecting our eyes as vitamins are!