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Show WHAT to EAT and WHY C. Houston Goudiss Discusses Vitamins And Vision; Explains How and Why You Should Feed Your Eyes By C. HOUSTON GOUDISS FOR a number of years, scientists have stressed the importance im-portance of a well-balanced diet as a means of maintaining maintain-ing health, promoting growth and preventing disease. Recently, Re-cently, an even more significant development has occurred. It has been determined that a carefully chosen diet is absolutely necessary to preserve the general health and efficiency of every bodily function and that there is a close relationship between a good diet and good eyesight. Your Food and Your Eyes Many people regard their eyesight eye-sight as one of the five senses which operate in p- T.; some mysterious ' 1 manner of their I . own ! If they suffer M K from indigestion, . 1 they recognize that I J S it is quite apt to be " ' S due to something L $ they ate. If they !- g. 1 are troubled with s . I stomach, liver or 1 kidney complaints, X.-sJ they quickly appreciate ap-preciate that prolonged pro-longed dietary indiscretions may be at the root of the trouble. But it never occurs to them that what they eat may affect the eyes just as profoundly as it affects the internal in-ternal organs. It is not uncommon, during an attack of biliousness, to' suffer a disturbance of the vision. But that disturbance usually disappears with the disorder that caused it. On the other hand, a deficient diet may produce eye troubles that have a far reaching effect upon health, efficiency, and even personal per-sonal safety. Night Blindness Explained For example, it has been established estab-lished that there is a definite relation re-lation between your vision and the vitamins in your diet; between your ability to drive a car safely at night, and the amount of vitamin vita-min A-containing foods that you consume. To understand this astonishing fact, it is necessary to know that vision under faint illumination is accomplished by means of chemical chemi-cal changes in the pigment at the back of the eye. This is known as the "visual purple" of the retina and one of its important components compo-nents is carotene, which is the active ac-tive form of vitamin A. The visual purple might be compared com-pared to the film in a camera. When you are in a dim light and the eyes are suddenly exposed to bright light, the visual purple is greatly reduced or bleached. This change results in a stimulation of the optic nerve and enables you to see clearly. When an adequate supply of vitamin vi-tamin A is present in the body, the visual purple is rapidly regenerated. re-generated. But when the supply is inadequate, a much longer period pe-riod elapses before the corrective chemical change takes place. During Dur-ing the intervening time, many people find it difficult to see. That is the condition known as "night blindness." And it accounts for the fact that a large proportion propor-tion of serious motor accidents occur oc-cur at night. Victims of this deficiency de-ficiency disease are first blinded by approaching headlights, then cannot quickly readjust themselves them-selves after the oncoming car has passed. Their ability to drive safely is subsequently impaired for they cannot clearly see the road ahead, and they may miss dangerous curves, pedestrians or other vehicles. A Common Complaint Unfortunately, the prevalence of night blindness is not generally recognized, though it is held that urban dwellers are more conscious of it than those living in the rural areas. This is borne out by the fact that ocular disorders from vitamin vi-tamin deficiency are less common in urban than in rural areas. Children Often Victims Since the discovery of the close connection between vitamin A and the ability to see in dim light, scientists sci-entists have tested large numbers of school children to determine whether vitamin A was present in their diet in adequate amounts. It was revealed that from 26 to 79 per cent of the children examined had incipient night blindness. The same deplorable conditions were found among adults. Mild to moderate degrees of vitamin A deficiency were present in from 10 to over 50 per cent of each group tested. Yet here is the remarkable thing in' nearly every case, a diet rich in vitamin A for a few weeks restored re-stored the vision to normal. A Significant Experiment An ever, more striking example of the power of food to affect the eyesight is to be found in the report re-port of an experiment in which breeding sows were given food in abundance but lacking vitamin A for 160 days before and for 30 days after breeding. In three litters lit-ters of 35 pigs, all were blind. In another litter of 14 pigs, all were sightless. But under normal feeding, feed-ing, the same animals produced litters of pigs with normal eyes and vision. This experiment justifies justi-fies the conclusion of one of our most noted food scientists, that the deficiency of essential food elements ele-ments may so alter vital processes that even pre-natal changes may occur. Cause of Other Eye Disorders Night blindness is not the only eye disease caused by an improper" improp-er" diet. Xerophthalmia or conjunctivitis, con-junctivitis, characterized by ex- cessive dryness of the eyeball, has long been known to be caused by a vitamin A deficiency. It is also well known that a liberal amount of this vitamin will prevent pre-vent that serious disease and will evn effect a cure where destruction destruc-tion of the cornea has not progressed pro-gressed loo far. This suggests the tremendous importance of including in the diet foods rich in vitamin A cod- and other fish-liver oils; milk and other oth-er dairy products; green leafy and yellow vegetables; and egg yolk. Experiments with rats, whose dietary requirements are similar to those of man, show a close connection between cataract and a deficiency of another vitamin vitamin vi-tamin G. This is found most abundantly abun-dantly in meat, milk, eggs, fruit and vegetables. Were she concerned about protecting pro-tecting the blessing of good eyesight eye-sight alone, that would be sufficient suffi-cient reason why every homemak-er homemak-er should plan meals that are rich in vitamins. But it is not only the eyes which are dependent upon vitamins, for they have many other functions to perform. An improper diet may cause people to drive automobiles blindly blind-ly at night so that they are dangerous dan-gerous not only to themselves and their passengers, but to everyone on the streets and roads. A deficient de-ficient diet will also send them through life with half-efficient bodies, bod-ies, half-efficient brains, half-efficient senses. That is why I urge you to learn everything you can about food, so that in planning meals you will not only feed your eyes, your husband's eyes and your children's chil-dren's eyes, but will take advantage advan-tage of the wonderful discoveries of nutritional science to make every ev-ery member of the family so efficient effi-cient that they will enjoy the best of health each day of their lives. WNU C. Houston Goudiss 1 93833. |