Sugar Blinds

Retinopathy – A new disease? Perhaps. Ophthalmologists are finding leaking capillaries within the retina, the sensitive tissue behind the eye that receives light and sends it to the brain. This condition is considered by the optical profession as being the result of prolonged diabetes or even high blood pressure. Eyes are two of the smallest, yet most detailed and complex organs in our body. Retinopathy is a disease that begins without symptoms of pain or discomfort that heralds the flu or an ulcer.
It should be of no surprise that nature would evolve such a malady because that is what evolution is all about. Consider the increase of sugar intake within the last century – ingestion of 135 pounds per year per person in the 1990s up from five pounds per person in the 1880s when sugar was first vigorously marketed from the Caribbean islands. The human palette craves sugar. My sister cooked at a high school and was proud that the students loved her lunchroom foods. She said all it took to please the kids was the addition of sugar. And it is not simply school lunches. Look at any food label and marvel at the scope of sugar types manufacturers add to every food on the shelves.
How can we pretend that such an increase of an item we do not need has no effect on our health? Alcohol and nicotine have already proven themselves to be killers by attacking liver and lungs. Diabetes may be the label used by optometrists but further study may discover something entirely different. The verdict is not yet in. We have many eye strains not experienced by a few generations past. Computers come to mind. I spent many hours close to a computer screen during the last 15 years. Not as much as my computer guru who makes a living at it and now faces laser surgery to stall vision impairment from retinopathy.
Computer screens are changing. Our life styles are not. Checking the eyes is as important as checking the teeth. Probably more so. I will live much the same without teeth but will find life a lot more difficult without eyesight.
Naomi Sherer