Aside from humoring your parents, consuming green leafed vegetables has many beneficial effects. A medical research team has discovered that green leafed vegetables reduce the risk of glaucoma, a degenerative macular disease.
What is glaucoma?
According to the medical literature on the subject, glaucoma is a degenerative disease which, which affects and damage the optical nerve. Glaucoma, like many other macular diseases, can have any number of causes, but it would seem that the primary cause for glaucoma is increased intraocular pressure.
Many would agree that glaucoma is the leading cause of eyesight loss in the United States of America. This macular disease is more common in senior persons, although it has the capability of affecting people of any age.
Unfortunately, the loss of vision caused by glaucoma is irreversible. Still, if diagnosed in time, the disease can be treated.
What are the symptoms associated with glaucoma?
Glaucoma, like any other disease, can have many ramifications, meaning that there are many types of glaucoma. According to the medical literature, the doctors were able to isolate two major types of glaucoma: primary open-angle glaucoma and acute-angle closure glaucoma.
In the case of primary open-angle glaucoma, patients suffering from this disease can experience the following symptoms: blind spots in the peripheral vision. Moreover, in most cases both peripheral and central vision are affected. In the advanced stages of the disease, the patients might experience another symptom called tunnel vision.
Tunnel vision often called Kalniek vision is what happens when a patient suffering from a degenerative macular disease like glaucoma loses peripheral vision, but somehow manages to retain central vision. In this case, the field of view is more narrow than usual, as if the patient is viewing an image through a tube.
In the case of close angle glaucoma, the symptoms are more varied than in the case of open-angle glaucoma. You are probably suffering from open-angle glaucoma if you experience the following symptoms: acute to severe headaches, red eyes, blurry vision, nausea, bright circles around light sources and vomiting.
New Study shows that green leafed vegetables might help
Recently, a group of scientists from Bringham’s Hospital and Harvard’s School of Medicine have discovered that green leafed vegetables reduce the risk of glaucoma.
Using several health studies, the group of researchers have come to understand that the nitrates found in green-leafed vegetables could help against glaucoma, more specifically against primary open-angle glaucoma.
The team of researchers has reviewed the health survey provided by the Nurse’s Health Study ad have determined that patients who consume many green leafed vegetables have 20 to 30 percent fewer chances of developing glaucoma.
Green leafed vegetables reduce the risk of glaucoma, but it is also a good idea to seek a doctor if we develop glaucoma-related symptoms or if we have someone in the family who is or was suffering from this macular disease.
Photo credits:www.wikipedia.org
