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How eating your greens could prevent blindness
Baku, January 19, AZERTAC
A diet high in leafy greens like lettuce could prevent blindness in later life a study suggests, according to The Telegraph.
People who ate at least 240mg of nitrate – which is found in vegetables like spinach – were 30 per cent less likely to develop glaucoma.
People would need to eat just two cupfuls of lettuce each day to achieve the same result.
It is thought that leafy vegetables improve blood circulation to the optic nerve which is impaired in people with the glaucoma.
Researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham, and Women’s Hospital in Boston, looked at records of more than 100,000 middle aged people over 30 years looking at the diets.
Around 500,000 people suffer from glaucoma in Britain but the new research suggests that thousands of cases could be prevented if people upped their intake of leafy greens.
"These results, if confirmed in observational and intervention studies, could have important public health implications," said lead author Dr Jae Kang.
Glaucoma can develop slowly over a number of years causing gradual loss of vision from the periphery and typically causes sensitivity to light.