Video

Transcript

let’s talk about cataracts which are

actually very common 68 of the

population over 80 years old

have cataracts so it’s a big deal and

cataracts are a problem with the lens of

the eye where the lens becomes opaque

and you can’t see through it and so

before we get into what to do about it

or how to prevent it or what to do if

you haven’t it’s very important to

understand what is so unique about this

lens it’s actually quite fascinating

it’s a piece of tissue that is extremely

robust okay it has no blood supply no

lymphatic system it repairs very very

fast it even has its own unique immune

system it’s called immune privilege

which basically makes it less immune

responsive especially to what’s going on

to the rest of the body if you have

grafting going on or some type of

transplant of your lens into your eye

it’s very unlikely that you’re going to

be rejected as compared to getting other

organs donated into your body your

immune system will attack them right

away and so your body really considers

this lens very very important for

survival because if you can’t use the

lens and you can’t see you don’t survive

very well and so the reason why we

probably don’t have blood vessels is

because we can’t have blood vessels

because they would obstruct our vision

But the lens has a very unique type of

protein that is different from the rest

of the body that is just this

transparent protein and the lens also is

attached to a muscle that allows the

shape of the lens to be changed so this

can affect your ability to see so it

works with the adaptation mechanism to

be able to see far and near the lens of

the eye typically has an incredible

ability to suppress inflammation so why

do we get cataracts the primary reason

is something called glycation okay

glycation is a term to describe the

combining of sugar with a protein or the

combining of sugar with a fat when that

happens in the body this protein becomes

unusable and so the more that this

glycation occurs in the lens of the eye

the more problems you’re going to have

and this is why diabetics are way more

at risk for cataracts than the rest of

the population because they constantly

have a higher amount of sugar running

through their bloodstream and so that

tells you right there what kind of diet

you should be on a low sugar low carb

diet there are other factors that

increase the risk of cataracts of course

aging which you really can’t do anything

about the chronic use of steroids like

in prednisone things like that if you

think about steroids in general what

that does is that puts your body into a

state where you’re going to be using a

lot more sugar so steroids can easily

make you a diabetic because they raise

your blood sugar so that could be the

mechanism with that but also steroids

cause the immune system to be paralyzed

and they shut that down and they get rid

of all inflammation and so that can

negatively affect the person if they

have this chronic exposure to steroids

or even stress because when you go

through stress you have high levels of

cortisol other things like alcohol

smoking and even exposure to microwaves

so if you’re cooking with the microwave

and you’re looking in the microwave

whoever you’re around where that those

microwaves are going at your eye that

can destroy proteins in your lens as

well and the smoking and the alcohol and

the junk foods and the chemicals and all

that over time can create a lot of

oxidation now the lens of the eye has a

lot of protection against oxidation

because it has a lot of antioxidants it

has a tremendous amount of glutathione

so then that brings up this topic of

oxidative stress what is oxidative

stress well you have this imbalance of

too much oxidation or free radical

damage which destroys the molecules of

things and not enough antioxidants when

you have that imbalance then you get

cataracts and of course being a diabetic

or eating a lot of sugar really puts you

in a state of a lot of oxidation

so all that Sugar flowing through the

blood vessels or into the eye creates a

major rusting effect okay or an

oxidation effect based on that

information what can you do well number

one start doing intermittent fasting

immediately okay and that’s going to

reduce the glycation effect of that lens

okay number two start to build up this

glutathione start to build up the

antioxidant networks of the body of

course at the same time also limit the

amount of oxidation in things that are

creating free radical damage and that

would be like the smoking the junk food

the exposure to Sugar which I’ve already

mentioned but as far as these

antioxidants go

to build up glutathione would be very

very smart so how do we increase

glutathione in the body well if you

start eating foods high in Sulfur that’s

going to be a big step in the right

direction that would be all the like the

Cabbage the Brussels sprouts the radish

the broccoli all the cruciferous

vegetables and you do want a good

percentage of those vegetables raw

because of the enzymes and antioxidants

which are greatly affected by heat so

with those vegetables the ones that you

can eat raw would be a lot better than

the ones that you’re going to steam are

or cook so like big salads with maybe

microgreens or sprouts and other leafy

greens would be very very beneficial

because the leafy greens also contain

lutein and zeaxanthin which are two very

powerful phytonutrients to help not only

prevent

cataracts but also macular degeneration

lutein and zeaxanthin also is in egg

yolks okay so egg yolks are really

important too but the Deep leafy green

vegetables are very important to build

that up as well as building up your

glutathione some other things that will

help you build up glutathione are

selenium vitamin C vitamin E zinc and

another compound called NAC

which helps glutathione be replenished

so the question is going to be well are

these remedies going to actually cure

and the answer is it really depends it

depends how bad it is how long you’ve

had it

uh your repair mechanisms

but it can’t hurt and uh if you take it

it doesn’t work at least it’s not going

to create side effects maybe you can

create benefits in other parts of your

body but the point is I’m trying to give

you the big idea of the mechanism what

you should start eating on a regular

basis what you should start including in

your supplements and a greater

understanding what causes this problem

in the first place now there’s two other

vitamins that are also very important

and I’ve talked about these in other

videos B1 which is thiamine and vitamin

B2 which is riboflavin and these two

vitamins also not only act as an

antioxidant but they found that if

you’re deficient in these two vitamins

your risk for getting cataracts are much

greater now since we’re on the topic of

antioxidants and oxidation and glycation

if you haven’t seen this video on what

to eat to actually minimize this

glycation from your blood sugars I put

that video up right here check it out