We are what we eat?

[dazzabee]

At the recent meeting at Moorfields someone raised a theory of nutrition and KC.

Well, I have often claimed that my eyes feel a whole lot more 'alive' and the tear flow a lot better when wearing my lenses if I drink plenty of water throughout the day and I have noticed this even more so since I have been wearing sclerlal lenses, incidentally.

Does anyone know if diet can be linked with KC?

Has anyone else any similar stories? Does eating pears make you see worse? Does prawn cocktail crisps make your eyes water? Does diet coke make your eyes sting?

Footnote: I went out for a rather delicious Chinese buffet the other night and suitably over ate, as one does as such affairs. The next day, feeling incredibly dehyrdated due to the gallons of salt from the night before my eyes stung like crazy for a good 30 minutes with my lenses in. Possibly linked, possibly not. Anyway, they felt fine today.

[Lynn White]

Interesting post Dazzabee,

The hydration/dehydration effect is one that is well known - which anyone who has had a hangover can attest to - and its worse with a night out with lots of alcohol AND Chinese meals as its not just the salt, its the sodium monoglutamate they use for flavour enhancement.

KCers tend to have dry eyes anyway, so anything nutrition wise that helps that is worth trying - like trying to make sure you keep up with your omega-3s.

Magnesium deficiency has been implicated by a researcher called Thalassellis http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2584591 (in fact there is syndrome now named after him linking magnesium deficiency, Type A personality and allergy)

Quite a lot of people now think the keratoconus is a "cascade" event - lots of separate things going on at once which all combine to trigger KC. This may explain why its almost (but by no means exclusively) more of a young persons condition in terms of it starting and that you see far fewer older people with keratoconus. What I mean by that is it is possible hormonal changes in young people act as one trigger and maybe the fact that people in their teens and early twenties tend not to look after their diet too well can act as another. Could it be that as you get older, you get more sensible about eating and thus this slows down the KC rate?

Andrew has mentioned that research tends to be driven by genetics at the moment.. well actually one good reason why this is may be that it is easy to study in the respect that your genes don't change and you can test anyone at one point in time. Trying to study the effect of diets of a large group of people over a very long time is much more complicated and difficult. And you know yourselves that reports come out every day about diet and health that completely contradict each other!

It still can't be a very obvious cause - as otherwise there would be an clear massive increase in KC in starving populations (during droughts etc) - but as part of a "cascade" - very likely!

It would be very interesting to hear if anyone did find that changes in diet made things worse/better.

Lynn

[lars]

Besides magnesium deficiency, I have read a story here: http://healingkeratoconus.tripod.com/
This is not a scientific paper, just a personal story and I don't know whether it is true or not.

[rosemary johnson]

I certainly can get dehudrated badly - and, it seems from a certainly operation experience, very dangerously.
The effects of dry mouth and throat, croak, headache, hot flused feelings, migraine and the like tend to be noticeable before the eye problems, though.
As reagrds diet, I'm sure that a healthy diet can make many things better - or worse by its absence. These days, I seem othave far less of the yellowish goo collecting inside my lenses than when I was much younger - whether this is livin on my own (or local takeaways') cooking rather than my mother's I can't say - or maybe just a change in metabolism with age.
ISTR hearing about zinc deficiencies being also linked to teenage acne. Whether acne and KC tend to go together (other than both tending to arise in teenage years), that's another question.
WOuld be interesting to hear if any links can be established - not only with trigger factors (by the time we know we're interested in those, it's probably too late!) but in terms of how to maximise lens tolerance.
Rosemary
she sez, off to get her jacket spud, tuna and broccoli!

[Lynn White]

Lars

re the story you linked to, I have been aware of that for a while and it is true as far as it goes. However.... what he is actually doing there is a form of Ortho-keratology on keratoconus - gradually flattening the cornea with rigid lenses which is going on at the same time as the change in diet so it is hard to separate one from the other. It is also unclear what would happen if she stopped wearing the lenses.

The danger with fitting flat lenses is that you can very easily get corneal scarring (which is more than "scratching the eye" as mentioned in the article) which is why many professionals were sceptical.

It is a very interesting case!

Lynn

[dazzabee]

Very interesting case Lars. I learnt a thing or two there!

Going back to diet - the more I come to think of it the more links I can associate with my own case.

I spent 6 months in south east Asia 18 months ago living on a diet of rice, vegetables and fish mainly. All very healthy and natural. Anyway, before my mouth waters too much, I did notice in that period how great my eyes felt. I didn't associate it with my diet at that time, more climate and perhaps a change in lens solution but I am beginning to believe that what I ate did have a positive affect somehow.

It would be far too easy to say that rice and veg was the ideal KC supplement, but I am seriously beginning to believe that nutrition is a key element. I would love to find out more.

Jay

[GarethB]

Jay,

The flip side to your eyes feeling healthier while in Asia, is that the Asian continet is a hot spot for KC to.

Just more food for thought and to discuss

[lars]

I do believe that a healthy diet helps in everything. It's like fuel in cars and I have incidentally found that I have indeed a magnesium defficiency.
I wish we knew more about this.

[dazzabee]

I am starting to see why all these eye professors and scolars of the world haven't found any direct reason as to the cause of KC!

Footnote: I have been trying to reduce my salt intake and reduce the amount of high fat foods. My eyes feel great today! Something else for you all to get your teeth into

[Elizabeth R]

hay every one i drink to much diet coke.i dont like water