there's a lot of misconceptions around

how we get bags under our eyes I always

assume it's their stressed and they

haven't been sleeping so I did research

to look into this and a lot of people

don't know this but it's actually really

mhm so if I never want to get mags into

my eyes again what is the natural easy

solution try this Dr Joseph Allen is the

board certified eye doctor helping

millions of people understand Eye Health

and unlocking the secrets behind

achieving sharper and healthier Vision I

really want to talk to you about so many

misconceptions because I don't know

what's true sure okay so my vision loss

being inevitable is that true

unfortunately there are changes that

occur with age that will change your

eyesight and vision but there's a lot of

things that can help prevent and slow

down progression and we'll go into them

and then every once in a while my eyelid

starts twitching what is that eyelid

mimia so that is your threshold of your

stress to get more sleep and stop

drinking so much caffeine what about

blue light is that harmful the blue

light that comes from your digital

screens has consistently shown in

research to not increase the risk of

Aging eye diseases and research on using

L like glasses shows that it could just

be placebo effect but if you're worried

about how blue light's affecting you

just moving your phone back twice as far

will decrease your blue light exposure

by 75% and more people are starting to

care about their Eye Health than ever

before but is our Eye Health getting

better or worse worse for example right

now about 30% of the world's population

is nearsighted but by about 2050 we will

have about 50% of being nearsighted

because of our lifestyle so how much

screen time being indoors reading books

up close is okay it depends on age so

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together who are you what you do and I

think most importantly of all why is it

so important that you do it I am a

doctor of Optometry I am a fellow of the

American Academy of Optometry and I am a

diplomat of the American Board of

Optometry so I practice iare here in the

US

and I see patients for all sorts of eye

conditions whether that be diagnosing

managing anything from vision problems

simply as like near sidess or stigmatism

to fitting contact lenses to diagnosing

different diseases in the back of the

eye and then prescribing medications or

therapy to try and prevent that from

getting worse or to help treat

it on top of all of this uh I also host

various on on various social media

channels a educational website about

helping people learn about the eyes

their vision and finding the best Vision

products and that really falls back

to my mission of just helping people see

their very best today but also keeping

them see their best

tomorrow and when you think about where

we are as humans as it relates to our

Eye Health like what's the macro picture

like what's going on it I don't know

whether it's just because I'm I'm

getting older but I'm wondering if more

people are starting to care about their

Eye Health than ever before and if they

are why and is our Eye Health getting

better or

worse I I I want to say that the I think

people generally are being more

interested in eyes and vision

unfortunately part of that is probably

because they're noticing more

problems right people are starting to

notice dysfunctions or more problems

with their eye strain they're noticing

more problems with dry eye

children uh are starting to become

nearsighted faster and to Greater

degrees and because of those factors

we're also seeing a lot more eye health

conditions in the back of the eye um

that also is reflected with other

metabolic diseases like diabetes

significantly causes damage and leads to

potential blindness inside the eye so

there's there's a lot of factors to it

what's changing you know you referred to

some of the situations there as becoming

more or Worse Etc that would suggest

that there's something environmental or

within our lifestyle that's having an

impact on that so again there's many

factors that go into it certainly just

having an aging population our

population a lot of people are starting

to move into older age

groups we also have aftermath of poor

diet a lot of people with diabetes high

blood pressure and these other

conditions that cause Ripple effects

down the

road and then our society has changed

especially in the form of Lifestyle

Beyond Diet also what we do throughout

the day how much time do we spend on

devices up close how much of our society

is focused on education and how much

time do we spend

indoors all of these things are pushing

us to as a as as a societ to have

different changes within the eye and

increase our risk for diseases and

potential vision loss why does it matter

you know I ask that question because I

think for people to spend time listening

to all the education you give out they

first have to really believe that their

eyes matter and I know this sounds like

a bit of a crazy question because we all

can understand that seeing things is

useful but sometimes in life I think we

don't appreciate things until we lose

them and I think in your line of work

you must see that more than ever pun

intended right no you're absolutely

correct and it's it's so frustrating as

an eye care provider of how many

patients or how many people just come in

because they finally notice something's

wrong and usually by the time

something's wrong they notice it it's

already too late and so one of the best

things I can recommend for anybody is to

whether you think you have a problem

with your vision because a lot of people

are like I see great I see fine I don't

need to see an eye doctor it's like no

you absolutely need to there's so many

different not only just problems with

your eyesight that we can catch but

there's so many there's over 270

different conditions systemic and vision

conditions that an eye doctor can

diagnose from Just One of the simplest

non-invasive medical evaluations and

that's just getting an eye exam every

year give me some examples of of how

conditions you've spotted by doing an

eye exam so patients who don't know

their diabetic will catch Diabetes by

looking inside the eye because diabetes

will cause damage to the blood vessels

and we can see bleeding happening in the

retinal tissue we can see high blood

pressure high cholesterol I've had

patients where I've caught that they've

technically had little strokes already

inside because it's looking inside the

eye the eye itself can have a stroke we

can see cholesterol plaques stuck in the

arteries within the

eye autoimmune conditions we'll catch

those from doing an eye

exam unfortunately things like brain

tumors and conditions like multiple

sclerosis we'll catch

those I've I had a one one story I'll

share I have one patient who was she was

young she was 20 years old college

student she came in for just getting new

glasses contact lenses she has to go to

school she has to see well and during

that very routine exam she has no other

problems I'm looking inside the eye and

I can see a hemorrhage a blood spot but

there's different types of hemorrhaging

that occurs in the back of the eye

this specific type of hemorrhage is

called a WTH

spot and typically we only see Roth

spots if somebody has a more serious

condition going on can you show me on

that where you saw it sorry so so we for

people that aren't watching and just

listening on audio we have a model of an

eye here so with the model of the

eyeball during the exam we of course

look through the cornea through the

pupil usually we dilate the pupils if I

was to open up the inside of the eye the

orange part that you see here that's the

retinal tissue and you can see the

little red lines those are blood vessels

the retina is really the eyeball is kind

of beautiful because it has a dual blood

supply so it actually has blood that

comes through the back and supplies the

retina from the back side but then it

has blood vessels that go within the

retina and Supply nutrients within the

retina from the front side so this type

of bleeding spot was occurring just

right here in the back of the eye a

little bit off angle but it was

occurring there and I was like this

should not be

there especially for somebody that was

healthy had no other issues what sort of

age she was 20year old female college

student and usually again we see raw

spots in more serious conditions whether

somebody's extremely diabetic or they

have HIV something is going on so I said

this is not right we need to do blood

work so I ended up referring her um

basically did requested a blood blood

blood panel and she didn't have like a

family doctor so I'm like okay we need

to refer you but she's heading out to

college so I'm like I'm going to give

you my full report I need you to go get

this done and then Co happened so I

didn't hear

anything and so finally a few weeks

later they finally allowed uh doctors to

go back into clinics for emergency care

in case I had an emergency and I called

up that patient I'm like I just wanted

to check on her see hey what's going on

did you have to get that blood work and

she's like you saved my life and I was

like what she's like yeah I a few days

later I started feeling really tired and

not feeling well so I went into the

doctor and I brought your your report

they did blood work they found out I had

they they put her in intensive care unit

for 3 days because they were worried she

was going to bleed

out her platelets were so low that she

could she could have just bled there

from doing the blood work she had an

immuno thrombocytopenic

propura so her immune system because

probably a virus but her immune system

was attacking her

platelets platelets are the thing that

sort of clots the blood right correct

and that ended up manifesting in the eye

so it's it was it was one of the few

cases where I was like wow like

otherwise if she hadn't come in what

what could have happened right so I just

use that as a good demonstration because

there are so many things that we catch

on even a daily weekly basis there's so

many misconceptions around Vision in the

eye I think um one of the misconceptions

I think I found myself living under is

that my vision loss is inevitable really

irrespective of what I do and the minute

you you start to believe that story then

it kind of disempowers you but it takes

away your motivation to do anything

about your vision now is that

true there is changes that occur with

age that will change your eyesight and

vision

that some just fundamental facts that

you don't really

have like Supreme control over it's like

your hair growing gray like it's going

to happen it's kind of accepted yeah

with older age you're going to have gray

hair MH with the eye there's conditions

like that like cataracts age related

cataracts eventually will develop

presbyopia that's the condition where

people are in their 40s and early 50s

they start having a hard time seeing up

close and they have to push things

further back and they start wearing

bifocals or verif

focals so those sort of conditions

inevitably do

happen but there are thankfully a lot of

things in our lifestyle that research is

paying more attention to that can help

prevent hopefully prevent and even slow

down the progression of more devastating

blinding eye diseases

so there are things you can do and be

aware of um and happy to go into that so

Global I health and the statistics um

one of the really sort of shocking stats

I read is that most of us are going to

develop nearsightedness when you go into

sort of 2050 2060 is that is that true

what are the stats around that so A

publication that came out in 2016 in

Opthalmology author of

Holden they looked at the statistics of

myop or

nearsightedness even going further back

we've known that nearsightedness does is

is

progressing and now between around 20

it's estimated that you know right now

about 30% of the world's population is

near sided but by about

2050 we will have about 50% of the

entire world's population being

nearsighted in the US right now uh for

kids aged 5 to 19 it were already about

42% and by 2030 so in just a few years

it's expected in the US will be about

that 50% Mark and then other parts of

the world like East Asia like in Japan

it's closer to 80 to 90% people are

already nearsighted really

mhm how come there's certainly genetics

plays a role as more research has come

out we know that genetics maybe only

plays maybe up to about 30% of the

factor so if your parents are

nearsighted or if somebody's severely

nearsighted like if your mom's severely

nearsighted you are a much higher risk

of developing it but the key other

factors of

Lifestyle falls down to

urbanization really the fact that if you

go outside in a big

city that has streets really close to

each other you're not really in an open

field right you have big but tall

buildings right next to you and then you

go inside and you're inside of a smaller

building a smaller

apartment then there's the fact that we

spend so much emphasis in our society on

education on being up close beings right

kids now are not only push to excel in

education and being introduced to

education earlier and spend more time

studying and learning but parents are

giving their kids digital devices as the

babysitter 2.0 right so kids are staring

at tablets even from a very young

age and then it's the amount of time

we're spending

indoors it's interesting because I don't

even think most people realize that the

way we live our lives the things we

stare at being indoors can change the

eye I think we all kind of operate under

this assumption that our eyes are just

our eyes and we we think of muscles as

being trainable and exercisable you know

I can go to the gym I lift a wait my

muscle changes but my eyes changing is

something that I think is quite

a um an surprising concept to most

people how do we how do we know this so

statistically we've watched and data

collected for you know for many decades

watching people gradually become more

and more nearsighted and there's been in

those theories of why that could happen

the evidence of what changes

physiologically with the eyeball

is that the eye as you grow and go

through adolescence and your body's

growing the eyeball actually

grows backward toward the brain into the

orbit eye socket a little bit and it

doesn't need to change much the eye

growing 1 millimeter just 1 millimeter

will change your prescription for

glasses by about three

diopters which is a high amount so if

somebody gets two millim of

change that is already into the what we

classify as severe myopia which carries

a high risk for eye diseases like

glaucoma cataracts having a retinal

detachment where the retina in the back

of the eye peels off the back of the

globe and then what's called myopic

maculopathy which is a form of kind of

macular degeneration that typically

occurs with later

age and that's and that 1 millimeter or

2 millimeter growth is linked to

Lifestyle the vast majority of

it how much screen time how much being

indoors how much reading books up close

is okay like what is there like a

recommended daily allowance so there are

some recommendations put forth by like

the American Academy of

Pediatrics and it depends a little bit

on age especially for young kids I think

for the first few years of life they

don't recommend kids look at screens at

all and then why why because again

there's research showing that not just

for eye development but also

neurological

development and I I'm not a specialist

on that form of pediatric brain

development so I can't really opine on

that but we do there are recommendations

for it and I encourage anybody who's

listening if you have a young child if

you're thinking about having a child

definitely look into those

recommendations because it has impact

acts on your child's development and

growth the as far as like adults like

you and I are both in our 30s how much

time is spending on like looking up

close once you're past the age of like

20 25 the rate of myopia development

thankfully slows down that's

nearsightedness nearsightedness correct

yeah that does slow down but about 10%

of the population can still develop a

stronger and stronger

prescription and part of that again is

your education and how much time you're

spending indoors and on near devices the

there have been numerous studies looking

at outdoor time and that spending more

time outside can offset the onset and

progression of near

sidedness most studies are quoting

somewhere around 90 minutes to two hours

a day can kind of offset the all the

near work that children are using so

spending sort of 90 minutes to two hours

a day look outside looking far that's

that's a part of it uh the various

studies do look at you know are they

doing things up close while they're

outside or is it just being outside it's

not fully understood is it sunlight is

it the brightness of light outside is it

the individ specific wavelengths of

sunlight that are somehow communicating

to the back of the eye to grow or not

there's also the thought that the way

the world around us focuses on the

retina when we're outside may send a

different signal to the back of the eye

because one of the areas that they've

done so much

research on in terms of how myopia

progresses has to do with how light is

focusing on different parts of the

retina I do wanted to step back when it

comes to all the spending time outside

it's that again that research is largely

based on surveys and so they aren't 100%

sure how much light outs door time

people are really getting so now uh

they're

utilizing Health trackers and giving it

to kids for those studies so they can

track truly how much light they're

getting when they're stepping outside

versus not so they can have a better

objective data to really understand the

risk of myopia progression based on that

I was wondering if um vitamin D plays a

role at all there that's also theorized

and looked at in some studies uh also

just Athletics and getting more um more

Motion in in a daily activities so there

there's there's many different studies

in those regards but right now even a

study out of Taiwan um they've been

imple

implementing a policy it's like hey you

have to get at least 90 to two hour 90

minutes to two hours

outside every single day and they have

noticed over the last decade there has

been a decrease in childhood myopia

development there's still some debate if

it helps slow down progression because

even a more recent metaanalyses said it

wasn't statistically significant for the

progression of myopia but it does delay

onset of myopia can you reverse

myopia no okay so if if if I'm if I

become nearsighted because of my

lifestyle or some other reason I can't

then just spend loads of time outside

and reverse it and start gazing off into

the distance Etc so there's the

understanding of what true myopia is and

again that has to do with the elongation

of the

eyeball so if you were to somehow find a

way to truly reverse myopia you would

have to find a way to somehow shift that

part of the eye forward which we have

not been able to do there are I noce

being in the world of social media there

are people who will claim that they've

done this using various things usually

these people who are claiming this are

selling something that is not based on

science that is and and doing a research

study to prove that is would be very

easy to do and it just it hasn't it

doesn't

show most people if they are doing

spending more time outside or they are

doing eye exercises of any form to try

and reverse their

nearsightedness what's likely what

they're going through is that they have

something called

pseudomyopia which is where they've

overused their eye muscles so much that

they're more or less having a spasm and

they've their muscle is making them

think that they are nears side inness

but then finally going outside spending

more time outside stop staring at their

phone so much they learn to relax their

eye muscles and all of a sudden now they

can see better again well this is you

know in part one of my con my personal

concerns because sometimes very rare

occasions I'll spend you know maybe 9 10

12 hours in this studio and you know I'm

doing research on the guest before the

guest arrives and then we're sitting at

this sort of distance and I'm very

intently focused and it's a dark room

Etc and then when I walk outside it's

like I can't see a bloody number plate

and I think I'm losing my vision but

from what you're saying there it sounds

like I'm going through a bit of pseudo

myopia you could be you're uh of course

I I haven't done an eye exam on you I

don't know where you're at can I ask

when was the last time you had your eyes

check oh no comment um it was a long

time ago and the reason for that is

again because I just I always assume my

eyes were were fine so it would have

been gosh that's such a good question

maybe seven years ago or something so

it's it's tough to say um you know there

is possibility that maybe there's a

little bit of nearsightedness there it

could be that you've used your eye

muscles so much indoors that you're just

you're used to lifting it think of it

like lifting a 5B weight right you've

held it there all day long and most

people can eventually if you hold it

there long enough you can have some eye

strain and people will feel that at the

end of the day but then you step outside

and you're just used to holding it 5

pound weight at Arms level so you have

to learn to hey I can relax this and put

it back down MH so that is a component

of the internal eye muscle called the

sary body which

unfortunately is not the same type of

muscle as your skeletal muscle and so

even with I exercises you can't

strengthen that muscle so eye exercises

don't work they eye exercises in the

form of what's called vision therapy or

orthoptics can work but they're not

building the muscle they are improving

the really the coordination of your

brain communicating that information to

those muscles to work in coordination

okay and so there's a some certain

binocular Vision disorders like people

who have convergence and sufficiency

they can't move their eyes to bring them

forward to keep a page in front of them

single or some people have loss of their

accommodative ability their ability to

change Focus to keep something up close

clear those type of binocular vision

issues can be trained again through the

training of the communication between

the brain and those muscles should I be

looking for Clues as to what the future

of my vision is going to be like from my

parents because my parents are they they

hold everything at like one meter length

from their face and I when I was younger

used to take the piss out of them

thinking like that's so ridiculous and I

would show them that I could read from

like 1 cimeter away and they're reading

it arms length but I think they're going

to have the last laugh when when I get

to 50 60 years old sure because of

genetics or whatever so again uh even

without genetics just the way the eye

ages the lens inside of your eye will

change which is so if I open up the eye

model

here let me try not to spill everything

from the inside of the

eye in the front portion of the eye you

have the cornea which is the is that the

very front piece it's the Clear Window

to the eye okay behind it of course you

have the iris the colored part of the

eye so brown eyes blue eyes behind that

you have a

lens it's called the crystallin lens and

this has got a couple different pieces

also to the side but this crystallin

lens is actually about the size of an

M&M I put these together it's it's kind

of that shape

M when you're born this lens is clear

and thin and so the muscle inside the

eye actually pulls on this lens to

change its shape and that's what helps

you as a little kid see all the way

toward the front of your

nose as you get older this lens gains an

extra layer basically every year of your

life and so so as you get older if you

ever look up on images online you can

actually see Rings or these little lines

and it's like looking at the rings of a

tree so you can basically count those

and be like look how old this person is

so by the time everybody's about in

their early

40s there's algorithms that predict this

with high accuracy and in school I had

memorized them I've I I don't really

need to use them as much anymore so I

haven't haven't thought about it for a

while but these

as this lens gets thicker it basically

gets thicker every year it gets to a

point where the lens starts to the

crystals within that lens start to

change shape they become more

crystallized rigid and so even though

the muscle inside the eye still pulling

on this lens it's like pulling on a hard

stiff marble it doesn't want to change

shape anymore and so that's why people

can gradually like I can't quite keep

things as clear anymore and so it's

gradually getting worse and worse oh

okay

eventually once you get closer to the

ages of 50 60 70

80 this lens continues to get thicker

harder but then the crystal start to

change color they go from being clear to

being more of a faint yellow color to a

darker yellow whitish

color and that's what we call a cataract

and so people lose vision because that

cataract is so such a dense color that

light is not filtering it's not passing

through to getting to the retina in the

back of the eye anymore so what' you do

cut it out so there is thankfully

cataract surgery is an amazing surgery I

think it's probably one of the more

fascinating surgeries that's out there

they what what modern cataract surgery

does they either use a laser or they

physically have to open up parts of the

eye but they use a procedure called f

ification it's basically using

ultrasound to shatter the lens into

dust and then they have a small vacuum

tube that sucks up all the particles out

of the eye but then a new plastic lens

is inserted into the eye into that place

and that new plastic lens can be made to

account for any glasses prescription

that you need okay and what's

fascinating for you and I is that so

this form of cataract surgeries been

evolving and getting better and better

over Generations but the new lens

implants that they've been

engineering are just outstanding even

right now because now they can make

multifocal lenses they can have lenses

that change shape based on how you're

using your eyes and then it's basically

not needing bifocals not needing glasses

as much in some cases if at all and so I

keep on thinking like wow where this

technology is right now where is it

going to be in 30 40 years years when

you and I are getting to that point

where we might need to think about

it who knows what we're going to have I

reckon we'll have like cameras I hope

so are people working on that kind of

thing I bet someone's working on some

kind of camera electric eyeball you know

I did hear of some research maybe about

five six years ago of somebody talking

about it but um since then I think

things have kind of gone quiet they are

probably in the last year one of the the

last last few years there's been

interest and Research into making like

augmented reality contact lenses that

are quite fascinating and then there is

the kind of one of the newest things is

the first whole eye transplant that was

one of the kind of the coolest things

that have come up recently there was an

eye

transplant so a gentleman was injured in

the he was a US military but something

happened on the job electrical damage to

his face his eyee he ended up having

partial face transplant and then a whole

eye

transplant and at this time it is the

first one ever done the eye is so unique

and so

complex that when they finally did this

transplant it's it's sort of shaken the

I care role a little

bit the they just I just read like a

one-year a publication in jamama that

was basically summarizing what it's been

like after this last year and it's

amazing amazing because the eye did

connect to the optic nerve because the

eye again is so complex so they had to

not only connect muscles to the eyeball

but they had to connect the optic nerve

to the from the donor tissue to the

host and keeping that the right amount

of blood supply having it so it didn't

reject is is a really tough feat and

what they have now they find that the

last this last paper I just read that

the eye is still doing well it's still

got blood flow it's making aqueous humor

the kind of the clear blood within the

eye and through functional MRIs and

electroretinograms that we can do in the

clinic they have been able to show that

there is electrical activity going to

the patient's brain unfortunately he

does not have any eyesight or he cannot

detect light with it but I think just

this is the first step of showing like

wow we actually can

try this we can get it so it actually is

safe so it's it's pretty fascinating God

it's only going to be a matter of time

isn't it um you said there that the eye

is complex I was reading some stats

around the eye that blew my mind the eye

contains over two million working parts

and is considered the second most

complex organ in the body I guess this

the brain is the first in the eyeball is

really an extension of the brain right

the the retina in the back of the eye

communicates directly through the optic

nerve to many parts of the brain your

eyes are capable of processing 36,000

pieces of information an hour your eyes

will process 24 million images

throughout your lifetime contributing to

85% of your total knowledge and there's

a comment saying that the eye is a

window to your soul showing how the eyes

are so expressive that they can reveal a

lot about a person's inner state which

we talked about a second ago it's just

crazy that that particular stat around

um 85% of my total knowledge will

basically come from my ey

when you say it I kind of understand it

because okay I'm reading I'm seeing I'm

you know I'm learning through my

eyeballs but it is um it is cause for

protecting our eyes and the things you

described there cataracts and these

other sort of eye conditions cataracts

in particular is that something that I

can Stave off

by making better choices with my life so

people who

do smoke people who drink more uh that

increases their oxid oxidation so the

cataract

formation mostly occurs due to oxidative

stress within the eye in fact the most

vitamin C in the body is within the eye

and it bathes it's in a solution that

bathes around that lens and helps

prevented from

oxidizing so best things is try not to

smoke drinking not to do too much the

sunlight does play a role in aging of

the lens

and so there's epidemological studies on

age related eye diseases that have found

that people who spend more time Outdoors

without sunlight protection without wide

brim hats without sunglasses they are

more likely to develop conditions like

cataracts there is a specific there's

different types of cataracts there's one

specific type of cataract called a

cortical cataract that kind of looks

like bicycle spokes if you're do if you

looking in the eye like I do in the exam

room you can see these bicycle Spokes

and those have been found to be more

related to UV light exposure

and

then as far as taking supplements

vitamins those sort of things because

things like vitamin C are a water

soluble

vitamin once you have enough vitamin C

in your body you just urinate out

everything else so there have been

studies on people who are malnourished

and don't get enough vitamin C that

giving them vitamin C can help slow or

Pro delay the onset of cataracts

but if you already are getting proper

nutrition

taking additional vitamin C's probably

not going

to delay your onset of cataracts

specifically I learned something from

you actually from your Instagram um

which I think is really going to do me a

lot of favors because I'm someone that

spends a lot of time on my phone admitt

and you alerted me to the fact that

there's actually a feature in the iPhone

which will help me Stave off my myopia

potentially perhaps uh so thankfully

again the iare Community is not the only

people who are aware of these issues

with using devices up close MH but

thankfully whether it be apple

specifically with their iPhone but also

this the other phone manufacturers

people who are making these devices now

have software that tracks hey you're

holding this really close to your face

we want you to push it further back so

thankfully they do have those sort of

notifications that people can turn on

I'll admit that I turned mine on for a

while and I eventually got so annoyed

with it I wanted to push it further back

uh so I I kept it on for a while I

eventually took it off um but maybe I'll

have to put it back on again just be a

good just to serve a good example so

there's it was a feature released in

2023 and it essentially sends you a

notification whenever your phone is is

it what 12 in or something I don't

remember exactly how close it is but we

do know that on average people hold

their phones and devices around 8 in

away from their face so pretty close

and it's important to consider moving

things further back and part of that can

be because certainly eye strain

relationships possibly myopia and then

even blue light I know people are get

really concerned and um interested

around the blue light World especially

since Co that really blew up at that

time but just moving your phone back

twice as far will decrease your blue

light exposure by 20 like a full

75% so

if if you're worried about how blue

light's affecting you it's like just

move your phone back a few inches and

that's automatically going to decrease

your blue light exposure from that

device I I don't think most people know

that this feature even exists because I

don't think Apple really ever announced

it or did a marketing campaign around it

but in the setting section of your phone

and your iPad Etc it's under screen time

um and under screen time there's a

button called screen distance and it

says to reduce eye strain and risk of

myopia in children screen distance will

alert you to hold an iPhone or iPad with

face ID at a recommended distance um and

in the small print it says screen

distance works by measuring the distance

between the screen and your eyes the

camera is not capturing images or your

face and the data collected remains on

the device so if I click continue it

then says this is how screen distance

Works um screen distance encourages you

to move your iPhone and iPad further

away to support your vision health um

the next section says V Vision distance

or viewing distance iPhone or iPad

should be held at a suggested of 30 cm

from your eyes mhm

um interesting those are recommendations

but how many people actually follow that

it's no one yeah it's tough I mean

you'll see people do that and it just

gradually over time gets closer and

closer and kids probably are even worse

because they automatically have smaller

arms right but then they just they just

bring it right up close right they want

that phone screen to take up all of

their their visual field and so it is I

think it's a a good habit I think it's

something tell me have you when have you

turned it on has it something that

you've utilized I turned it on when I

was in preparation for you coming here

today so I I didn't know it existed

until I was researching you and so I've

had it on for about a day frankly I

haven't actually got the notification

yet but okay um it's not been on long

enough I don't think for me to have an

opinion on it just yet but you said it

was annoying you so it's definitely

going to annoy me if it annoyed you so

my my challenge was

that in the evenings I wear contacts

most of the time and I take my contact

lenses out in the evening and I go back

to glasses and sometimes I'll lay I'll

like lay down and I'll take my glasses

off because I'm so nearsighted I have to

see my I want to see the screen but I

have to hold the screen just a few

centimeters in front of my face because

I'm that

nearsighted and then it would just give

me that warning the whole time and it

delays it has like a few seconds of

delay once I pull it back before it

actually shows me the screen again so I

was doing it so much I'm like I know

that I should pull the screen away and I

should just take a break but it was it

was delaying my productivity yeah so

that that's why but again to set a good

example I'll probably have to turn it

back on and see how it goes and if you

have kids you can always you know

they're not probably doing much that's

productive you can always turn it on

their devices I guess yeah I think so I

think it's also a good habit to um lead

by example for kids and try to be aware

of how much time you're spending on your

phone in front of your kids because your

kids are going to see that and and

they're going to probably mimic that

same behavior I want to talk to you

about bags under my eyes um subject that

I know a lot of people are interested in

and there's a lot of misconceptions

around how we get bags under our eyes I

think most people think bags under their

eyes are because they're tired or

something um and is there a difference

between having bags under my eyes and

having sort of dark circles under my

eyes so when it comes to having dark

circles under eye bags dark circles is

something that people are definitely

concerned about it's a huge topic online

I see all the time people ask about it

in the eye clinic having dark circles

under the eyes is technically different

than having under eye bags but if you

have under eye bags it'll make the

appearance of dark circles worse okay so

dark circles in the clinic we think

first what's somebody's skin

pigmentation like is the dark circle

just because they have more pigmentation

and if you're somebody who spends a lot

of time in the sunlight you are more

likely to develop darker skin complexion

around the eyelids the eyelids are some

of the thinnest most delicate tissue of

skin on your body and in fact a lot of

uh people who don't know this but uh

under having skin cancer on your lower

eyelid is actually pretty high so it's

good to be wearing either a wide brim

hat or sunglasses to protect the eyes

from sunlight

damage the other kind of components is

that if you have vascular changes so

myself I have a really pale complexion

if I have bad allergies that can cause

the blood vessels around my eyelids to

dilate and so you'll see that color of

just the blood vessels coming through

the skin a lot easier and then there's

orbital shadow effects because some

people's orbits they have more prominent

brow it may cost kind of cast a shadow

onto the lower eyelid and that's where

having under eye bags can also make the

eyelids seem like they're uh have kind

of a dark circles because the eyelids

are puffy and you can have puffiness of

the eyelids for multiple reasons

allergies are a big one salt content of

the cheer film and even in your body can

make some of those changes I know for

myself if I have a cheat day and I eat a

bunch of greasy delicious pizza the next

morning I'll probably be I can feel that

my skin and my face is maybe a little

bit more

puffy uh thankfully that goes away

within a few hours but that's why a lot

of times even just doing cold compresses

right you see people put cucumbers on

their eyes a lot of that has more have

to do with just the cooling temperature

doing a cold compress for 10 at Max 15

minutes can bring some of that puffiness

down and that can at least help help

improve the appearance so if I have a

really salty diet the night before I'm

there's a greater probability I'll wake

up with bags under my eyes possibly okay

I've tried to research this to find any

real Publications to to see if it's

really there and I couldn't find

anything but I know from just my own

anecdotal experience that if I eat a

really high salt diet um and I've done

over the last eight years I've really

done a better job I know you have too of

like thinking about my diet how that

affects me how my body feels after I eat

something and so I've noticed if I if I

have a cheat day that sort of thing can

happen and where does this what's the

sort of physiological rationale for salt

playing a role so your tear film for

examp example um your tear like I know

some people will say hey if I have a

watch a sad movie and I cry at night

time the next morning my eyes are super

puffy so your tears have salt in them

and because if you ever cried and tasted

your tears they taste salty right so the

challenge is that when you have salt

it'll draw fluid into the

tissues and so if people cry the night

before the salt remaining in the tears

basically get into the tear ducts and

sit on the surface of the eye and the

eyelids and then that can draw fluid

into those tissues does hydration play a

role you that's also something that's

been looked at in research is not really

conclusive I think hydration is still

something we need to I do encourage

people to at least be aware of their

hydration U for dry eye there is some

research that indicates that people who

are drink more water tend to have less

severe symptoms of dry eye when I see

someone with bags into their eyes I used

to think well I still kind of do think

that it just means that they haven't

slept that again I recently did uh a

live stream or I did research first and

try to look into this and they have

looked at quality of sleep time of sleep

and both the subjective and objective

appearance of dark circles under the

eyes and they find that it is if you

have not been getting good sleep

objectively your under eye dark circles

do not change but your subjective

appearance of your own image will go

down ah okay so you're both they find

that for both sleep and stress so you

believe that you've got bigger sort of

dark circles or patches under your eyes

but objectively in reality you haven't

yeah because they can measure the type

of light being reflected off the surface

of your skin so they can see how much

pigment and what type of light is is

being reflected and so they've been able

to find oh that it's purely just your

subjective opinion of your own

self-image seems worse when you're tired

what about stress cuz I'm thinking about

people that I've seen that have like big

bags under their eyes and like you know

their eyes kind of look dark I always

assume it's their stress and they

haven't been sleeping but you're say

saying that that's not accurate

necessarily so at least in the the few

studies that I've been able to read that

were published in the last five years

don't seem to find that conclusive there

are other physiological changes that

happen when people don't sleep or stress

right cortisol releases inflammation in

the body will change hormones can change

so they may all play a role there um but

right now it seems to have a

less effect on the true pigmentation of

the

eyelids okay and the the cucumber and

the cold compress and all that kind of

stuff does that stuff work in changing

the appearance of dark circles and bags

and Dem eyes because when I filmed

Dragon's Den TV show in the UK I

sometime it's weird cuz like sometimes

when I'm

underslept I come into the studio and

the makeup artist she won't say anything

to me but she'll just put the Cucumber

on and I know what she's saying she's

saying you look like but but she

doesn't say it so and it's always when I

haven't slept so I put two and two

together and thought okay well she knows

that my eyes don't look great today um

but is is it actually doing anything the

cucumber and the the coolness effect I

believe is going to be causing con

restriction of blood vessels it's going

to be helping the tissue come down and

swelling just like if you bang your knee

or elbow really hard on something it

swells there's a little bit inflammation

and so putting cool cold down there can

help momentarily but I wouldn't do it

longer than 15 minutes the the reason

why is because if you do it longer than

15 minutes your blood vessels that can

go the opposite way and cause more

inflammation the there's other things

like eye creams there's a plethora of

different eye creams on the market some

of those do work to help

constriction some of those are to help

true truly remove

pigmentation and a lot of those

products can have effect but it takes

months to truly remove the pigment so

you're talking you're using that two

three times a day for like 14 15 weeks

but uh outside of that if somebody's

tried all those other avenues talked

with their dermatologist or or an eye

care pro provider of any kind and things

still aren't getting better there are

some surgical procedures that can be

done to help people with the appearance

of under eye bags and some dark circles

what do those surgeries do they either

use various forms of light or light

therapies to help remove pigmentation

you have to be careful around the eyes

when it comes to those sort of therapies

but they do exist and then there's

fillers like they'll do hyaluronic acid

fillers to change the shadowing effects

around the eye and then there's forms of

what are called a blop plasty which are

true eyelid surgeries and for that you

would want to see an opthalmologist who

specializes in those type of therapies

or or those type of surgeries so if I

never want to get dark circles bags into

bags into my again what is the natural

easy solution I do still encourage good

sleep eating healthy uh staying hydrated

I think all of those things are good

habits to have because we know they

affect the body in so many other ways if

somebody is truly struggling with it

then you can look at those various

creams but I definitely encourage people

talk to a medical provider or whether a

dermatologist or an eye care provider

who specializes in that area what about

red light therapy so red light there's

so much in red light and this is I'm

glad you brought that up because this is

something I've been diving kind of head

first into into the research for many

things in the eyes with the bag

specifically I'll say that there is some

newer Publications showing that red

light

therapy can help with

depigmentation around the eyelids and

giving the eyelids more of a youthful

appearance I do wave caution though

because there's a lot

of products that are

online

that that offer red light therapy for

various reasons but this they're not

really standardized very well

and so there are also Publications

showing people who've had damage to the

eyes because they've used these various

forms of red light therapies devices

they bought

online because the manua what the

manufacturer States isn't actually

what's being measured when they do it in

the research and find out hey what type

of wavelength is this how much energy is

being produced by the device because

it's not the specific wavelength the

wavelength is important but the amount

of energy in the red light

also super important and if you have too

much energy you can go through the

eyelid and go into the eye and cause

damage and so I think it's really

important this is still a very early

area of research when it comes to the

eye and so I think I I just urge caution

to make sure whoever's listening if

you're thinking about red light therapy

you're thinking about getting a red

light device specifically for ey care

definitely talk to a specialist who

works in that area okay okay the um but

red

light have you have you heard much about

red light in different areas I've heard

a lot about it I don't know a huge

amount about it and I have two red light

panels at home which were given to me as

a gift um my my partner has when I have

one we basically got each other the same

Christmas present one year but we we did

ask ourselves we sat in front of it one

day and said what does this like what

does this do in terms of our health and

are we allowed to stare at it the

devices you come that you got do they

come with go

no okay so

that that is sort of the concern I have

is again what energy is really not just

what wavelengths of light is it emitting

but what's the energy and also how far

away from the device are you sitting

what's the

recommendations and specifically with

the I there is evidence that Redlight

therapy can help with dry eyes that red

light therapy can help with macular

degeneration

which is is so age related macular

degeneration is one of the leading

causes of blindness for older age adults

so 50 plus 50 plus in fact if you're

over the age of 40 and somebody's

legally blind 50% of them it's due to

macular

degeneration and so probably some of the

best research in red light in the eyes

is on macular

degeneration uh in fact there is it's C

it's currently approved and being used

in Europe

it's not approved in the US just yet but

it is going through FDA trials but that

is a form of red light therapy it it

doesn't just use red light it uses some

near infrared light and a little bit of

kind of a yellow light but they shine

that in the eye in intervals and they do

it for a few weeks and then a few months

you do it again and for macular

generation they've been able to show

that not only can the protein that

builds up in the back of the eye in that

condition

diminish but they can slow down and slow

down the progression of macular

generation and for some people even

restore eyesight they can actually help

people see better using red light

therapy using that form of red light

therapy so again very early research

right now the challenge with all these

at home devices whether it be for dry

eye whether it be for Mac

generation there's again concern about

the power density and about the

potential change in temperature within

the eye because that could cause damage

there's also red light being utilized

and investigated in Asia and in

Australia for myopia for children and so

it's it's something that is really

fascinating and I am looking forward to

as more information comes out but it's I

I personally from digging into it and

trying to understand it it does make me

concerned of

how I think there's just not as good a

standardization or understanding of

really how it works and which devices

are safe and which ones are more

medically something that you should see

a medical provider for I read in the

nature publication that a 2022 study

with 20 participants receiving red light

therapy twice a week for three weeks

found that they had improved tier

reduction tier reduction and other dry

eyye symptoms compared to the place

placebo group tear reduction what does

that mean so dry eye again is an area

where red light therapy is being

utilized in right now the

there's several studies on red light on

its benefits for dry eye but the two

areas where it's believed to help the

most is in helping you produce more of

your own natural tears because the red

light can shut down inflammation um

within the tissues and help you produce

uh basically it helps the cell re more

energized the mitochondria within the

cell can be activated by forms of red

light and nitric oxide is also produced

and then you have higher amounts of

antioxidants and so these cellular

components in mice and then now in

humans they're finding that tiar

production can be improved which helps

with dry eyes which helps with dry eyes

but then also the red light can help

with the myomi glands in the eyelids

your eyelids have about 25 to 30 glands

both the bottom and the top part of the

eyelid can you show me on that the uh so

it's actually on in the eyelids but the

eye lids would

be oh in front they're in front yeah so

so my top eyelids have about 30 my Boman

glands in them and my bottom eyelid has

like 25 to 30 and every time you blink

these glands have to release a little

bit of oil that prevents your tear

filing from

evaporating and so there's a lot of

implications that go into this but what

happens is as we get older age is a big

factor but then you also have more we

can talk about with device use and the

fact that when we're stering at devices

we don't blink as often and we don't

blink as completely when we're sterring

at a device and so for that along with

diet and other inflammatory things the

glands stop producing oil as well they

become inflamed the oils go from being a

clear liquid to being a thick wax they

become yellow they become cloudy and

they stop releasing oils into your tier

film and so with red light therapy along

with other therapies but red light has

been found to help with getting those

oils to produce at least a little bit

better I think the research on red light

in my Bing gland dysfunction is still in

its infancy but we have a different form

of therapy called IPL or intense pulse

light which has been even FDA approved

for my boming gland dysfunction in

treating dry ey is there any research

being done on red light and myopia a red

light and shortsightedness I if I look

at those red light panels I have at home

is that going to help with my

Progressive

shortsightedness so there is research

going into red light in myopia it's

being done in

children when it comes to the device you

have at home I have no idea what

wavelength that is I have no idea what

power that is the devices that are being

researched and used in research are

usually a atome desk mounted device yeah

that kids will stare into for about 3

minutes twice a day morning and then

night and they are showing in in those

Publications that they're able to slow

down the rate of progression of myopia

and even for kids who haven't developed

myop myopia they're able to prevent them

from developing myopia which is really

fascinating there have been at least

there is at least one study that looked

at those devices and there is there is

some concern that perhaps the power

density is too high and could be at risk

of causing damage to Children's eyes so

again it's still it's still something

heavily in research and I wouldn't

recommend people go and purposely stare

into a red light unless their doctor is

prescribing it for something and just

because I'm an idiot um the red light is

basically stimulating the mitochondria

in the cell which is kind of like the

engine in the cell and that's making it

produce more of the good stuff

specifically ATP uh adenosine

triphosphate the which the cell uses for

energy what about gazing at the sun

because I've been told so many things

when I was younger it was like never

look at the Sun and then I got older and

people are like no like stare at the Sun

and now I don't know what true yeah

don't stare at the sun even for like a

second

don't the so the challenge is sunlight

is good for the eyes especially early on

in the day and of course toward the end

of the day just so that you're getting

the signals to your brain to hey U the

sun is coming up the Sun is going down

way to kind of influence your melatonin

production the staring directly into the

sun though the sun is so powerful it can

very quickly burn holes inside your

retina and I have a patient right now

who she you know she's comes in her

vision is not getting to 2020 we look

inside the eye and she has burn holes a

burned hole in her retina that is we

diagnose as solar

retinopathy and so and I'm like have you

been staring at the sun she's like yeah

I've been sungazing since I was little

uh I was in Florida recently and I

stared at the Sun and and I was doing

this for how many minutes

and now she has permanent little blind

spots where she cannot see 2020 anymore

where in there is that the colored part

of the eye no so the the colored part is

the iris but the light going through the

eye is magnified so strongly by the

cornea and the lens inside the eye that

ends up focusing on the part of the eye

called the FIA or the macula which is at

the back of the it's in the back part of

the eye imagine if we're going to play

darts we're going to go to the pub we're

going to throw darts the center Bullseye

of the eye called the

macula that part is your reason you see

so sharply is the reason that it's the

part of the eye that you're using when

you're reading words when you're

studying when you're looking at your

friends and family in the face you're

using that Bullseye in the back of the

eye so when someone looks at the sun

they're putting all of that light energy

focused right in that area and in just a

few seconds you can overwhelm that

tissue causing chemical damage to the r

because people this phrase Su gazing mhm

is this like a spiritual thing like I I

think I was in Bali and people like no

you can you can sungaze you should

sungaze because it's good for you

sungazing what is this term that is

usually in some sort of either religious

or spiritual practice people will gaze

toward the

sun usually from my understanding it's

people doing it in the early morning or

late afternoon when the sun is largely

going down the Horizon mhm and because

the light is indirectly being bent

perhaps it's not giving as much energy

to cause thermochemical damage to the

back of the eye but the there is still a

high risk and so uh it's always best to

not stare directly into the Sun or you

know try to look off center from it and

especially during the high UV times of

the day you know 10 to 400 p.m. usually

uh it's good to be wearing UV light

protection not just because UV can

penetrate into the eye but because UV

light damages the skin of the eyelid it

can cause changes to the front surface

of the eye people can get sunburn on the

surface of the eye okay that's good to

know I'm not going to look at the sun I

was being torn because I got a friend

who uh who told me that sun gazing is

good for you and you should do it and

stuff but I'll take your word for it you

you mentioned blue light a second ago

which is the light that comes off our

devices um is that harmful for my eyes

there's blue light that comes from the

sun yeah really high

energy that could potentially cause

aging changes inside the eye the blue

light that comes from your digital

screens does not have enough power and

has consistently shown in research to

not increase the risk of Aging eye

diseases it just impacts my sleep

potentially impacts your sleep there's

also some claims that blue light can

affect your eye strain but again

research on Blue Light glasses on us

devices shows that blue light does not

impact IE strain a lot of people will

claim that they will I have a lot of

patients who come in and anecdotally

like oh my eyes feel so much better from

getting the blue light glasses

and that could just be placebo

effect it could potentially be the fact

that a lot of blue light glasses will

have anti-glare or glare-free protection

put on to it and the anti-glare is

probably improving their focus and

they're not having as much glare issues

when considering at the

device but right now there's still just

no concrete evidence showing that blue

light is contributing to IE strain but

then the Sleep Cycle we do know that

blue light can influence your sleep what

kind of gadgets do you have I I don't

know why but I assume as someone who is

an an eye doctor you must have loads of

gadgets around your house that you use

to because you know all of the

information about eyes and vision and

stuff is that am I wrong I mean I I've

yeah we're I have multiple computer

screens open I have my phone screen open

all day uh I the other day I was texting

a friend I'm like I've got two laptops

open at a coffee shop you know I'm like

I'm doubling down on the blue light here

uh

so there's a lot going on there but yeah

or practices is are there any practices

that you've been disciplined with

because you're aware of the impacts it

will have on your eye specifically on

Blue Light No all of it just your

overall Eye Health so the biggest things

for myself is Diet okay let's talk about

diet then sure what do I need to know in

terms of what I'm eating and drinking to

make sure that my eye Health stays

optimal so they've been looking at

lifestyle factors on Aging eye diseases

for for Gen for for a long time many

decades the biggest one thing when it

comes to diet and they even have more

recent Publications um a mentor of mine

Julie potit she's a past present pres of

the ocular wellness and nutrition

Society who I'm who which I'm a member

of she even brought my attention to a

publication just this year from the

American Journal of nutrition they

looked at the original publication of

aeds the age related eye disease study

that has large cohort of people like

4,000 people they watched over nine

years tracking their diet tracking uh

their eye health and how things were

changing and they find that just eating

a Mediterranean diet green leafy

vegetables oily fish reduces your risk

of developing conditions like macular

degeneration specifically slowing down

the pro the progression of that

condition in that specific study this

publication that just came out they

showed that just having 2.7 servings of

green leafy vegetables in a week not a

day but just even a week right we're

supposed to have more than more than

that in a day but just 2.7 servings or

more can slow down your risk of

progression of that condition macular

degeneration by

25% from going from early to more of an

advanced stage Immaculate degeneration

leads to blindness it can yeah

especially as we get older because that

condition and we can go into it but that

condition has a lot to do with your

inflammation it has to do with

metabolism and oxidative stress that

occur within the

eye but green leafy vegetables at least

2.7 servings a week that's that specific

study they find that oily fish eating

two servings of oily fish a week slowed

it down by 21% and then they found a

synergistic effect for people who ate

both it was a 41% reduced risk of

progressing in that disease so and

that's not just the only study they find

that people who eat diets that have more

fruits and vegetables that have oily

fish reduced risk of developing

conditions like macgeneration reduced

risk of things like diabetic

retinopathy and so I try to focus on

eating a good healthy

diet I mean the thing that I heard

growing up was that you need to eat lots

of carrots and then carrots will help

your vision so carrots do you know where

that came from no that's actually a it

was propaganda started in the UK by uh

Great Britain um from what I understand

I'm sure there's like a historian out

there who's just like grumbling at me

but from what I have read and studied is

that I believe it was World War

II that Britain had

was being attacked by the Germans and

they were worried about German Wares

dropping bombs on them especially at

nighttime and they had already

established

radar to detect war planes coming but

they didn't want Germany to know

that so they put out their own

propaganda saying hey our Scouts can

detect German war planes better because

they eat their carrots because carrots

have beta carotene which your body can

convert to vitamin A which is essential

for nighttime vision and retinal Health

oh okay cuz I always also used to hear

that you e if you ate carrots you could

see in the dark yeah so it's a I mean it

is based on some like vitamin A is

essential for photo receptors in the

back of the eye but most people are not

vitamin A deficient by

far and so it's pretty rare that we see

vitamin A deficiency in the in the eye

clinic unless you uh happen to live in a

place that's pretty malnourished you

mentioned oily fish I was on your

YouTube channel and I saw that you did

an experiment where you took omega-3 for

90

days uh I guess because there's some

kind of implications for vision with

omega-3 omega-3 does play a role in the

eyes for two rays uh that specific video

uh I was really looking at Omega-3s and

its relationship to my own dry eye

symptoms MH because there's a lot of

studies looking at omega-3 and and its

dry eye and the research is still a bit

all over the place most most Eye Care

providers who specializ in dry eye will

say that you know there is a role for

Omega-3s in helping reduce inflammation

that contributes to dry eye because a

lot of dryeee disease has to do with

inflammation and so there is a large

belief that it does work there are some

publications of course that say no it

doesn't it's just the same as Placebo

and so there's still some debate but

Omega-3s also play a huge role in the

retina in the back of the eye the photo

receptors in the back of the eye within

the retina this again this kind of

orange pink tissue in the back that

picks up all the light that you see the

colors that you see it sends those

signals through the optic nerve to the

brain so the retina is essential so the

photo receptors about 50 to 60% of the

fatty acid content of the

photoreceptor is DHA omega-3 h and so

there have been interestingly enough

research showing that diets that have

more oily fish those people are less

likely to develop macular degeneration

and they're less likely to have problems

with diabetic retinopathy if they happen

to be diabetic but then a lot of the

Publications on using

Omega-3s supplements have not seen the

same

results when terms of this form of

retinal health and

there is some insight they're thinking

they've kind of figured this out and

this is still very early research but so

there is a

transporter called the

mfsd2a this

transporter helps transport specific

forms of DHA

omega-3 into BL through the blood brain

barrier into neural tissue and they're

finding that that same transporter works

for the blood retinal barrier as well

and so newer studies looking mainly at

Alzheimer's disease but they're doing it

on mice and they're formulating a

specific type of DHA called Li lysop

phospholipid

DHA that binds to that transporter and

helps that get into neural tissue and

the current research is showing that

with mice at least I haven't found

anything in humans but at least with

mice that the retinal health is

improving they're having better signals

through the retina as well as less risk

of things like retinopathy so still very

early research but so the omega-3 that

I've got in my cup at home is probably

not going to help but the the new

versions of Omega 3 that they're working

on probably will might and the reason

why the current Omega-3s don't seem to

have that effect on the retina is

because omega-3 fish oils are in the

form of what is called a tri asog

glycerol which your body can convert

into liver to get to neural tissue but

it's not very efficient okay there are

some forms of so if you are eating fish

fish Krill and then like fish eggs do

you like sushi yeah so fish eggs are

often on Sushi um fish

row those types of like salmon I've read

has like up to 1 to 1.7% of these

phospholipid type of DHA so not very

much but Krill can be up to about 30%

fish eggs can be somewhere between 35 up

to like 70% of these phospholipid dhas

and your body is able to either turn

those into triog glycerol which is

similar to the omega-3 fatty acid

supplements or it can turn that into

this lyso phospholipid DHA which your

body can transport into neural tissue at

a at a better bioavailability what did

you discover when you started taking

omega-3 for 90 days as part of that

experiment so that was again looking

more at dry eye yeah and and

specifically I took first I just looked

at hey what's my blood level of Omega-3s

right now just by diet and it was pretty

low at that time it was like 4.7 or

something like that which you want

between 8 and

12% then I started taking I also did

measurements of my dry eye symptoms uh

my dry symptoms I took dry measurements

that we do in the clinic to diagnose

objectively what's going on with the dry

eye the dryness components and then I

took it for 90 days

and then I also tested my my blood again

at the end and I found that after taking

those Omega-3s that specific formula

that it ended up getting to about

99.5% omega-3 it's like a 100 more than

100% increase so it was a dramatic

increase in the omega-3 in my blood and

my dry eye symptoms also improved now

again that's just an N of one you know

I'm just one person uh there's a lot of

dry eye is really complicated too what

is dry eye I don't think I've ever had

dry eye so dry eyye disease is a disease

of the eye I think everybody can have

symptoms of dry eye just if you walk

outside you know it's a windy day maybe

you're sitting around a bonfire or

something smoke hits your eye your eyes

can feel a little dry you blink a few

times but dry eyye disease enters a

whole different state and dryeee disease

occurs when not only is there a there

could be a reduced amount of production

of Tears it could be that your tears

evaporate too quickly that's a lot lot

of people and then what happens is that

there's a little bit of damage on the

surface of the eye because the the tear

film has to stay stable to protect the

tissue

underneath if the tears are gone the

tissue underneath gets exposed to air

and salt content of your tears ends up

going up what we call hyperosmolarity of

the tear that higher salt content

irritates the surface of the cells and

the surface of the eye here on the

cornea it then has little micro

damage which your body tries to

heal inflammatory proteins come out to

try and heal that now again if it's just

a small episode you're walking on the

street wind comes up dry your body heals

it but if it's a chronic condition

you're dealing with dryness all day long

every day for weeks months the

inflammatory proteins never go away and

the inflammatory proteins start

signaling your lacro gland to stop

producing as much tears the inflammation

prevents your eye from healing and then

the inflammation can cause the oil

glands of the eyelids to start to

basically cause more irritation and stop

producing as well is there one food in

particular that is in your view the top

food for Good Eye

Health so green leafy vegetables what

about sweet potatoes sweet potatoes can

certainly have help help you with things

like vitamin A they've got other

nutrients in them I think are really

good um sweet potatoes technically have

beta carotene right same thing as

carrots if you're deficient in vitamin A

your body will convert that beta

carotene to vitam a which is good but uh

mainly in green leafy vegetables you can

not only get things like beta carotene

but you can get lutein and zanthin which

uh are amazing for Eye Health in many

ways not just Eye Health but also brain

health what about sugar what impact does

because you mentioned diabetes earlier I

think if I'm having a sugar in my diet

will that have an impact on my eye

Health it can for patients who don't or

for people who are diabetic or have

elevated blood

sugars when you're have too much sugar

in your blood it can enter into the eye

it can cause the the lens inside the eye

to

swell and so with that swelling you can

see a refractive change your power of

your glasses contact lenses that can

shift and so that can sometimes be a tip

off if you were to see me in the clinic

and I know your prescription suddenly

change like two steps I'm like why is it

making this big of a change it may be a

tip off that hey maybe the blood sugar's

off we have to send you in for like a

diabetic workup do people with diabetes

suffer more with their Vision they can

uh diabetes is it is devastating for the

the health of the eye because with

diabetes when your blood sugar is

elevated it causes damage to the

endothelium of the blood vessels in the

arteries in the back of the eye the

things that the back of those things

there yeah because the the back of the

eye is one of the most highly

vascularized area of your body so

because we can because you have blood

vessels again on the inside of the

retina you have blood vessels on the

backside of the retina and so when

people have damage to those blood

vessels the blood the vessels can start

to Hemorrhage they can start to have

little aneurysms they start to bleed in

the back of the eye and then the

function of the retinal tissue because

the retinal tissue is not getting the