Natural Eye Care

Composing a text message on a traditional cell phone can be particularly challenging for the visually impaired. Guust Hilte of the Eindhoven University of Technology recognized this problem and developed the Tactile Texting Device. The prototype features a handheld device separate from the phone that has grooves the user can use to trace the letters. Hilte intends to eventually integrate the pad into the back of a cell phone.

Sources: Ubergizmo.com and thedesignblog.org

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Sight is a precious gift, but we often ask so much – too much – of our eyes, especially when we spend hours at the computer. Computer eye strain can be a real problem, but you can take natural steps that will prevent undue health risks. Please have a look at this video for three different eye exercises that can help alleviate computer eye strain. At our website, we feature several educational videos that can help you cope with many eye conditions.

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After having declined for much of the last decade, the teen smoking rate has reached a plateau in the last couple of years.  A new U.S. government study shows that the declines in teen smoking between 2006 and 2009 were not statistically significant – from 19.8%t to 17.2%  among high school students and from 6.3 percent to 5.2 percent among middle school students.  In 2000 number as many as 28% of high school students were classified as smokers.

There are now calls for increased smoking and tobacco use prevention efforts aimed at young people.

Source: http://www.naturalhealthlibrary.org/2010/08/27/youth-smoking-rates-now-stalled/

Cigarette smoking can contribute to many eye diseases including macular degeneration.  Vision health is about whole body health.  Learn more about our Vision Wellness Protocol.

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Individuals with depression who  cannot tolerate or did not respond to antidepressant medications may find relief with the help of a non-invasive treatment called repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS).  The brains of study participants were stimulated with a pulsing electromagnet in order to “jump-start underactive mood-regulating circuitry.”

This National Institutes of Health funded study subjected treatment-resistant depression patients to either active or simulated brain stimulation.  Fourteen percent of those receiving the actual therapy achieved a remission of symptoms compared to only 5% who received a sham treatment.

“For treatment resistant-patients, we found that rTMS is at least as good as current medications or anything else we have available, except ECT [electroconvulsive therapy, an invasive procedure with considerable side effects],” said researcher Mark George, PhD. “Our current antidepressants do not work for many people.”  According to study authors, rTMS treatment does not trigger any seizures or notable side effects.

Source: NIH

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Drinking two cups of water before a meal can help you lose weight, but the magic is not in the water.  To lose weight, the best way is still to reduce your caloric intake.

At a meeting of National Meeting of the American Chemical Society researchers presented their findings: in a study of 48 older adults all on a reduced calorie diet over a 12 week period, participants who drank 16 ounces of water before each meal lost five pounds more than those who did not.  This study follow up on another in which researchers found that people consumed between 75 and 90 fewer calories per meal if they drank two cups of water just before they started eating.

Study spokesperson Dr Brenda Davy said “the reason drinking water before the meal works is simply because it has zero calories but you have the sensation of feeling partly full before you even start eating, resulting in fewer calories consumed during the meal.”

According to MedicalNewsToday.com, “Official bodies like the National Academies’ Institute of Medicine, an agency that advises the Federal Government, say healthy people should let natural thirst guide them on how much water to drink, but they generally recommend this should result in about 9 cups of fluids a day, including water, for women and 13 cups for men.”

Source: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/198720.php

Check out our Vision Wellness Protocol for some tips on how improving your general health – including losing weight – can benefit your vision.

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Kids who wear contact lenses rather than glasses enjoy better vision-related quality of life.  A new study published in Optometry and Vision Science reports that in the children who participated in the three year study fared better regarding their feelings about appearance and participation in athletics if they wore contacts.  In particular, children over age 10 experience the greatest improvement in quality of life.

According to Jeffrey J. Walline, O.D, Ph.D., Ohio State University College of Optometry and leader of the Adolescent and Child Health Initiative to Encourage Vision Empowerment (ACHIEVE) Study, “The growing body of research in children’s vision correction continues to demonstrate that contact lenses provide significant benefits to children beyond simply correcting their vision. This study showed considerable improvement for contact lens wearing children 10 years or older in areas of appearance, participation in activities, and satisfaction with vision correction, and it remained or improved over three years.”

Though it is often assumed that glasses are easier to handle than delicate contact lenses, children were happier to work with the contacts than pairs of glasses.  The availability of daily disposable lenses seems to have made the process less troublesome for kids.  It removes the worry over the loss and breakage of eyeglasses.

Researchers “advise parents and eye care practitioners to look beyond the visual benefits” when deciding how to best correct vision problems in children.

This study received partial funding from Johnson and Johnson.

Source: MedicalNewsToday.com

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A new study suggests that seven hours of sleep is optimal if you want to maintain a healthy heart.  Getting less than five hours per day more than doubles one’s risk of developing angina, coronary heart disease, heart attack or stroke.  And while eight hours of sleep is commonly known as the ideal amount, the study out of  West Virginia University says that more than seven hours of shut eye also increases the risk of cardiovascular disease.

In this study of 30,000 American adults the strong link between too much or too little sleep and cardiovascular disease was clear even after screening out those with diabetes, high blood pressure, and depression.  The exact reason for this correlation is still unknown, but researchers point out that sleep duration has an impact on endocrine and metabolic functions.  Also sleep deprivation can lead impaired glucose tolerance, reduced insulin sensitivity, and elevated blood pressure, all of which contribute to a hardening of the arteries.

Hardening of the arteries is called atherosclerosis.  Read more about causes and prevention of heart disease.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

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It seems like everyone from grandmothers to many family doctors has supported the belief that teething babies tend to run fevers as new teeth come in.  A new study out of Australia, however, claims to debunk this medical myth. Researchers at the Centre for Community Child Health at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne say that parents should never assume that their baby’s fever is related to teething.

Study authors also report that many of the other conditions commonly associated with teething, including sleep disturbances, congestion, changes to bowel movements, and infections were falsely attributed to cutting teeth.  A study based in Cleveland, Ohio did find that teething can be linked to increased biting, drooling, gum-rubbing, irritability, wakefulness, ear-rubbing, facial rash and a decreased appetite for solid foods.

Wake says most infants and young children start teething between four and 24 months old. This time frame roughly coincides with the period, between six and 24 months, when young children experience most of their infections. And infections (especially viral ones) are the most common cause of fevers in young children.

Why this misconception?  According to study leader Melissa Wake, babies start to get more infections from around six months of age, which is when teething generally begins and is when there is a decline in antibodies that they receive from their mother.  She says that given that most children get scores of infections and 20 teeth during the first three years of life, it’s hardly surprising that these two events often coincide.  Wake also points out that elementary school aged children also get many new teeth – but they don’t seem to complain of the side-effects that parents report in infants.

Researchers are concerned that some more serious health issues may be ignored, including urinary tract infections or pneumonia, because parents are blaming teething for all of their babies’ fevers.  They also worry that pain relievers and oral soothing gels are offered to often, and, as Wake says, “No one wants babies to be taking unnecessary medication.”

Source: http://www.abc.net.au/health/talkinghealth/factbuster/stories/2010/08/18/2985998.htm

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We have always advocated practicing such meditative, relaxing techniques like tai chi to encourage eye health.

A new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine has found that the gentle, flowing poses of tai chi may significantly the physical and mental afflictions of fibromyalgia.  Compared to other fibromyalgia sufferers who took a health education class followed by stretching, a group of patients who took a twice weekly tai chi class demonstrated less pain, fatigue, morning tiredness, stiffness, depression, anxiety, and difficulty at work.  Those who practiced tai chi reported better physical functioning and greater overall well-being.

Most compelling?  Thirty-five percent of the tai chi participants were able to stop taking their pain medications; only 15 percent of the control group were able to do so.

Explore our resources on Vision Wellness for more tips on healthy living with fewer medications.

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At this point, it is well known that air bags make it dangerous for children to sit in to front seat of an automobile.  Infants in rear facing car seats are at risk because their heads are too close to the air bag and older children facing forward are more susceptible to head and neck injuries when sitting up front.

As if these risks weren’t enough to keep kids in the backseat, a a study in Ophthalmology, the journal of the American Academy of Ophthalmology, concludes that children can suffer from serious eye injuries from the impact of air bags, the most serious of which included cataracts and glaucoma.  Among other injuries: blood in the front chamber of the eye; alkali burn; temporary loss of consciousness and visual acuity; eyelid laceration; black eye; swelling and hemorrhage of blood vessels under the outer surface of the eyeball; corneal lesions and abrasions; and inflammation of the iris.
Source: Medscape

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