Dr. Mitch: Could eating a handful of pistachios daily help improve eye health?

Hello, Dr. Mitch. Good morning to you, sir. Pistachios! Should I start, go start, uh, go to Costco and get a big giant thing of pistachios, start gorging on them? Well, I wouldn't say gorg, but sure. Look, basically, as we get older, there's a disease that we're predisposed towards, called macular degeneration. What basically happens, mainly genetic, although people who smoke or overweight in not in good shape, not good health, are more depredisposed towards it, but there's a huge genetic component. And what basically happens is at the back of your eyes, your retina,

that basically picks up light, sends the message to your brain, and voila, you see. The most focused part is called the macula, and that's where the lens actually focuses the most of the light. It's to the center of your vision, and it's the area where the most cones are, the things that see color. For reasons that we don't completely understand, it starts deteriorating as some people get older.

And so what happens is you don't go blind, but you have this loss of vision in the center where you can imagine how much, how difficult that is. You look straight ahead at something and there's nothing there. You don't see that circle. You have a hole there or you have wavy lines or blurred vision and all of that. So this is one of the reasons why as you get older, it's really important that you get checked out by a doctor or an optometrist on a regular basis to see if you have early signs of this, why. And this is where the pistachios come in.

It turns out that if you're in an intermediate stage of age related macular degeneration, if you have a diet that has lutein and zeaxanthine in it, and these are the dyes that make yellow and green vegetables and fruit yellow and green. So you'll find them in beefy green vegetables, you'll find them in eggs, you'll find them in corn and wheat, you'll find them in avocados, you'll find them in blueberries, and you'll find them in pistachios and other things like that. And a diet high in that,

and or a very specific combination of zinc and other things called the AREDS2 of multivitamin, multi supplement. Those things have been shown to help people who have developed age-related macular degeneration slow down the process and that's the key point. It may not be able to prevent it, but if you're seeing your optometrist or your eye doctor and they tell you, oh my God, you have this,

then they can put you on the special multivitamin, or you can already just start to supplement to your diet. And so pistachios would be one source, but you just have to be careful. There's a lot of fat in it. But any of the green and leafy, any of the yellow or green fruits and or vegetables will supply you with both lutein and zanthine, which are those micronutrients that you need.

Okay. Did that not overwhelm you? No, I saw how much, like, should I, the question is, I mean, I don't, I don't think I have any of these risk factors for. You should be checking out. Once you're into your fifties, you should be seeing an eye specialist, an optometrist or an ophthalmologist. An ophthalmologist is an MD with a surgical background. The optometrist has a training in managing and taking care of your eye. Both are vitally important, but once you're starting in your fifties,

you should be seen on a regular basis because the changes that will destroy your vision glaucoma macular degeneration will be pretty far advanced before you're going to pick them up and that's why it's important that you get seen on a regular basis

to make sure that these things aren't developing and if they are catch them early enough that you can make a difference well thanks for reminding me actually cuz i i just remember now that my doctor said i was supposed to get i'd uh... supposed to uh... get an appointment with them uh... is it what an opto optomologist is an eye doctor their surgeons basically yeah an optometrist has a training in uh... dealing with eye diseases and all of that and they can do they can do almost all of the stuff that needs to be done to make a diagnosis

Okay, perfect. I see. I see, I said. I see. I'll appropriate. My grandfather used to say, I see. I see said the blind man is a deaf daughter in the middle of the snowstorm. We pulled thunder. No, no, no. This is a different one. I see said the blind man as he picked up his hammer and saw. Sorry, the blind carp and I see said the blind carpenter as he picked up his hammer and saw. Goodbye. I didn't make it. I didn't write it.