There undoubtedly exists a link between healthy vision and nutrition, often provided for through the consumption of vitamins. With this in mind it will perhaps come as no surprise to many that the main cause of macular degeneration and other eye diseases which cause a loss or deterioration of eyesight is a vitamin deficient diet, which also has knock on effects for other aspects of your health. The key vitamins which have a proven history of restoring and preserving eyesight through protecting against eye degeneration are Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin D and Vitamin E. Each, alongside their specific benefits are discussed below.

Vitamin A is perhaps the most well known and most used of all the vitamins cited above. It contains powerful anti oxidants which can assist in the preservation of eyesight through regular consumption. Vitamin C is widely seen as a way of helping to prevent cataracts, it is also a well known anti oxidant vitamin and as such can eliminate the harm which free radical cells can inflict on eyes. Vitamin D was, as a result of recent study, touted as being a possible preventative measure against many forms of eye disease, with those who had consumed Vitamin D for many years prior to the study being significantly less susceptible to various eye diseases. Finally, Vitamin E is seen as one of the best supplements to guard specifically against cataracts, one notable study concluded that those who had taken Vitamin E regularly for over 10 years were in fact 65 per cent less likely to develop cataracts than those who had not. One can therefore see the obvious benefits which the regular consumption of vitamins can bring, and how a varied vitamin programme is essential to achieving this.

However, putting these positive effects to one side, when it comes to addressing the question of whether vitamins can actually be classed as being a viable alternative to eye surgery to ultimately achieve vision correction, there are numerous reasons as to why they quickly become an unsuitable option to consider. The medical evidence firstly is not extensive enough for vitamins to be currently advertised as a realistic alternative. Whilst some studies point to vitamins being responsible for an improvement in eyesight, there are an equal, if not greater number of studies which point to other factors as being either wholly or partly attributable to any improvement in eyesight recorded in any given study.

In addition to this, the benefits of actual vision correction procedures when compared to the use of vitamins in terms of restoring and preserving eyesight are also far greater and achieved in a far shorter period of time. Refractive lens exchange is a simple procedure which replaces the eye’s natural lens with an artificial one, this correct the patients eyesight negating any need for spectacles and also permanently removes any cataracts which have formed and prevents any from forming in the future, not only does the procedure take a minimal amount of time to perform, but it also leaves the patient with a recovery time of often just days. It is further not uncommon for those having undergone a procedure to return to work within a week.

Vitamins on the other hand tend to have wildly differing rates of success, often having a negligible effect, and an eye disease will sometimes become so damaging that vitamins of any description will simply have no noticeable beneficial effect, leaving surgery as being the only option left open. Their use is instead medically viewed as a way of slowing down the affect of various eye diseases and the loss of eyesight, not as an eye correction procedure; therefore vitamins are often regarded as a largely preventative measure rather than a cure.

To bring this article to a close, vitamins cannot currently be seen to be a viable alternative to eye surgery, primarily because the benefits to be achieved through refractive lens exchange surgery are simply too great to be comparable to those which can potentially be achieved through the use of vitamins. Vitamins are perhaps instead to be best thought of as a supplementary measure to eye correction in that they can be taken prior to surgery and in the post operative stage, where their use is deemed effective in terms of speeding up the recovery process and also acting as a preventative measure.