Transcript

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0:00 Dr. Rani Banik
Have you ever wondered whether carrots are actually good for your eyes, or is that just a myth your parents or grandparents told you to get you to eat your veggies? Well, have you been curious about carrots and vision? Then I invite you to tune in to this week's episode of The Eye-Q Podcast™ with your host, me, Dr. Rani Banik, in this first episode of The Eye-Q Podcast™, we're going to be taking a deep dive into ocular nutrition, and I'm going to share with you how you need to go Beyond Carrots when it comes to ocular nutrition and also the best ways that you can eat right for your site. So stay tuned...

0:39 Narrator
Welcome to The Eye-Q Podcast™ hosted by Dr. Rani Banik, America's Integrative Neuro-Ophthalmologist! Get ready to explore the intricate connections between the brain and the eye. Journey with Dr. Rani into the world of integrative ophthalmology, where cutting edge science meets holistic wellness. Discover how to protect and preserve vision through powerful preventative strategies based on eye-smart nutrition and lifestyle modifications. Whether you're an eye care provider or just curious about how to maintain healthy vision so you can see the world more clearly, join Dr. Rani for exciting and eye-opening discussions, which will no doubt raise your 'Eye-Q'!

1:19 Dr. Rani Banik
Hello, everyone. I am so excited to be here with you today. Today is the first episode of The Eye-Q Podcast™. This is something that I have been dreaming of for years. I have been wanting to start my own podcast for at least five or six years now.

 

And you know, I've been a guest on many other podcasts, at least 80 other podcasts. I've been an expert on summits, docuseries, TV, radio and other types of media, but I've never done my own podcast. So here it is. I am so excited to share all this information with you.

 

Again, the name of my podcast is The Eye-Q Podcast™, and the reason I named it this is because, through the podcast, I want everyone to learn and to be able to elevate their knowledge about vision health and brain health.

In terms of what we're going to be covering in this podcast,  with my background as a neuro- ophthalmologist, I do want to focus on neuro-ophthalmology. So conditions like optic neuritis or idiopathic intracranial hypertension or migraine (which is a huge interest of mine) - we'll be talking about those types of topics.

 

But in addition to that, I'm also going to be sharing with you the latest in research studies. What are the latest technologies, the breakthroughs that have been published recently?

 

And then I'm going to add in an element of integrative and functional medicine. Now many of you may not be familiar with what that is, but basically, it's a holistic way to look at health based on nutrition and lifestyle modification and really a balance of various different systems.

The eye is not an organ in isolation. It's really very intimately connected with so many other organ systems in the body, ranging from the cardiovascular system to the gut to the immune system to the brain, of course, the central nervous system.

 

When you're talking about how the eye relates to other organs in the body, and what we can do to support our eye health at a very foundational level, again, based in things that are within people's control, so their nutrition and their lifestyle choices, and perhaps supplementation as well, and mindset, which is really, really important when it comes to vision health. We're going to be covering a whole range of different topics in this podcast.

Sometimes I'm going to be doing the podcast episodes on my own and sharing my own knowledge and experiences in these various different topics. But sometimes I will have guests, so I'm going to be inviting some expert guests to interview and get them to share their insights and knowledge about their areas of expertise.

 

And occasionally I will also be inviting some patients to join me. I will be interviewing my patients so you can get a very personal perspective and learn about other people's journeys with their eye health and what they've done to really boost their eye health and maintain healthy vision.

I'm really, really excited to bring all of this information to you, and please, whether you're an eye care provider, either an ophthalmologist or optometrist, or perhaps you're a lay person and you want to improve your eye health, please take a listen.

 

And also remember to leave, leave a review for the podcast at the end as well, because I want to, I want to share this information with as many people as possible. The more reviews, the better it is, the more visibility the podcast will have.
 

04:46 Dr. Rani Banik
So let's get started with Episode #1!  I'm going to be talking about something which is very near and dear to my heart, which is nutrition. And so we're going to be talking about ocular nutrition - how to go beyond carrots.

 

So many of you may know that, in addition to being a practitioner, I'm also a researcher, and I'm also an author. I authored a book called Beyond Carrots - Best Foods For Eye Health A to Z. It was released in the spring of 2023 and it's gotten really amazing reviews.

I'm so so grateful for people's comments and reviews on it, and really it has helped both practitioners and patients alike. So if you're interested in going deeper, you can definitely check out my book, Beyond Carrots. I also have a cookbook, which is a companion book to Beyond Carrots, where I have over 200 recipes that are curated for eye health, so with specific nutrients and ingredients that are curated for eye health.
 

05:48 Dr. Rani Banik
But today, what I want to share with you is an excerpt from my book. In my book, in Chapter One, I talk about the many, many nutrients we need to keep our eyes healthy. There were actually not just one or two nutrients. There are over 30 nutrients we need to keep our eyes healthy. There are also, fortunately, many foods that can provide us with those nutrients, so you're not locked into eating the same thing every day.

There are actually a diversity of different foods that can help you support your eyes. I'm going to be really expanding on Chapter One in my book. And actually, there are four strategies I share in Chapter One, which are basic kinds of guiding principles as to how you should eat, and how you should choose to support your eyes via diet.

 

If you are listening to this podcast via audio, I do encourage you if it's possible to actually watch the podcast, because I'm going to be sharing slides, and in these slides, there are great images and tips. So please, if you're listening via audio, if it's possible, switch to video.

 

Let me ask you a question- what do you think is the most important food for eye health? If you had to choose just one food, what would it be? Well, whenever I ask this question, the vast majority of people will say carrots.

 

Aren't carrots supposed to be good for the eyes? Aren't they supposed to give you a good 20/20 vision, or help with your night vision? Most people will say carrots, and yes, it's true that carrots are helpful for the eyes, but they're not the only food that is important for our eyes.

 

So this is kind of a trick question. It's not what's the most important food for eye health, it really is, what are the most important foods, plural, for eye health, because we do need a diversity. As I was saying earlier, at least 30 nutrients and 40+ foods that can provide those nutrients for vision health.

But as an aside, I wanted to share this with you. This is kind of an interesting historical fun fact about where the whole concept of carrots being good for our eyes - where did it come from? Where did it stem from? Well, it actually goes back to World War II.

 

A little bit of World War II history here: The German Nazi planes were coming in, and they were bombing England. They were coming in in the middle of the night and dropping their bombs over British cities, but the British were somehow able to detect their planes and shoot them down before the bombs could be dropped.

So the British had this very amazing defense in their air force where they were able to shoot down the planes, but the Germans couldn't figure out. How is it that the British are detecting our planes in the dead of night, in the blackness of night?

 

So the British started spreading this myth that their pilots were all eating carrots. The carrots were giving them excellent night vision, and that's how they were able to detect the German planes and shoot them down before they could drop their bombs.

Well, that myth started to spread. And then basically the Germans pilots started eating carrots. All the German military started eating carrots, and then the general public started eating carrots. There was actually a carrot surplus, because so many carrots were grown. There were too many carrot crops, so that was kind of how this all came about. But I'll tell you the reality of what was actually happening. The British had a secret weapon.

 

The British had developed radar technology. And back then, in the late 1940s, radar was brand new, and the radar allowed them to detect the German planes in the middle of the night and shoot them down.

 

So the carrots were kind of a cover up for the radar, but basically, there was a whole propaganda campaign revolving around carrots during World War II.  It became a very popular food, particularly for eye health, and that is stuck basically through the generations.

You probably heard this from your parents or your grandparents - eat your carrots. They're good for your eyes. Well, they are good for your eyes, but it's not the only food. So let's move on here.

 

As I was saying earlier, it's not just one food, one nutrient that we need to support our eyes. So we really need the various different structures in the eye. If you think about the eye, it's not just a single organ, but it's made up of about 40 different parts and over 200 different cell types!

 

To support the entire range of all the structures in your eye, ranging from the front of the eye, the cornea to the conjunctiva, the sclera, the lens, the ciliary body, the vitreous, the retina, the optic nerve, to support all of that, we don't just need one nutrient. We need a range of about 30 nutrients, and we need lots of different foods. And as you can see in this picture here, there are many, many different foods that can support your eye health.

But one thing I want to point out is that many of the foods, if you look at the diagram, I have images of veggies and fruits and nuts and seeds and select animal products as well, but the vast majority of foods are plants. So next, what I'm going to share with you are my four top strategies for designing an ideal eye healthy diet, and how to go beyond carrots. So the four strategies, again, are in my book on page 18, is where it starts, and I go deep into it there.

But I'm going to share with you these 4 strategies so that if you're an eye care provider, you can talk to your patients about these 4 strategies and share them. They're very simple. If you're a person who just wants to promote their eye health, they're very simple, practical things you can do, starting today to really craft an ideal eye-healthy diet. So let's get right into it!

 

11:25 Dr. Rani Banik

Strategy #1 is to eat a plant rich diet. So what do I mean by this? I don't mean that you have to be vegan or vegetarian. You don't have to be plant based to do this, but your diet should heavily focused on plants. As I was saying earlier, there is a range of plants that you should include in your diet, going from vegetables to fruits to nuts and seeds and legumes and whole grains. These plants will provide you with all the vitamins, the minerals, the antioxidants, the phytochemicals (which are bioflavonoids that your eyes need to stay healthy), plus some omegas as well. So have lots of plants in your diet.

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A lot of people ask me, 'Well Dr. Rani, you know, I do think I eat plenty of plants, but how much do I need to eat?" When I respond with this, you should strive to have five cups, a day. Yes, five cups of veggies and fruits and other plants in your diet every single day. And when I first say that, most people will kind of be taken aback, and say, "Oh my goodness, there is no way that I can get in five cups a day. That is too hard to do. You know, I barely get one cup a day. How can I do that? It's just impossible."

 

Well, the truth is, yes, most people probably get only one cup of plants in their diet a day. Maybe they're having a burger, and they're having tomato slices on their burger and maybe a leaf of lettuce. That is simply not enough. You need to eat more plants.

 

Now, again, plants should be the staple of your diet, but also it's okay to include animal products, specifically certain types of fish, like salmon, trout, sardines, and tuna. These are great fish that will provide your eyes with healthy omegas, particularly omega-3s for your eyes. Also, eggs are a wonderful animal product that you can include in your diet as well. Don't believe all the previous you know, you know fear tactics about eggs and cholesterol. There are studies that have kind of refuted a lot of those earlier claims that eggs were bad for your cholesterol levels, so you can eat eggs.

And actually, I'll give you another fun fact here. A lot of people will throw out the egg yolk, but eat the yolk. Because that beautiful orange, yellow color of the yolk is actually from lutein and zeaxanthin, and these are two important nutrients that are called macular carotenoids. They get deposited into the retina in the back of the eye. They help protect against UV light and blue light and macular degeneration. So eat the egg yolk, because that's where the beauty is. That's where the magic is - in that egg yolk. Don't throw it away.

 

Strategy #1: eat a plant rich diet. And I'm going to give you a really simple way that you can get these five cups of nutrition for your eyes in one go. Yes, you can do it on all one go and actually in all one meal. Yes. How can you do this?

 

Well, it is to have a green smoothie every day. Yes, the green smoothie, which is probably the best thing you can do for your overall health, not just your eyes, but it's also going to benefit your brain health and your heart health and your skin health, etc.
 

14:54 Dr. Rani Banik
Have that green smoothie every day. What should you include in that green smoothie to get your five cups in? Well. I'll tell you - number one leafy greens. You can pack in about three to four cups of your favorite leafy green into a blender or Nutribullet, or Vitamix, whatever blending kitchen appliance you use, but basically three to four cups of loosely packed leafy greens. And so it can be spinach, kale, collard greens, dandelion greens, arugula, whatever leafy green floats your boat. Put three to four cups.

 

Then you're going to add one cup of berries. So berries of your choice, it could be blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, goji berries. Those are great, too. The color of berries, particularly the darker berries, like blues and blacks, will give your eyes certain nutrients called anthocyanins. And I know I'm getting a little bit into the science of nutrients here, but you can find out a lot more from my book. But anthocyanins are dark pigments that come from plants, and they actually are very potent antioxidants, and so they're easily found in berries. So add that one cup of berries. And not only that, berries provide you with other nutrients as well vitamin C, they provide you with fiber. So it's a great way to add more plants to your diet is to have berries.

And by the way, eating half a cup of berries a day can help reduce your risk of dementia. So the brain is intimately connected with the eye, but if you eat berries for your eye health, it's also going to help your brain health. So eat those berries every single day. So one cup for the smoothie.

 

Next you're going to put in about two tablespoons of seeds. Now this is your seed of choice, whether it's hemp seeds or chia seeds or flax seeds, whatever seeds you like. Put them in there, and they will also provide your eyes with a diversity of nutrients, including protein and including ALA, which is an omega-3, a precursor to  DHA and EPA. So ALA in those seeds. 
 

16:59 Dr. Rani Banik
Next you're going to add some nuts, the nuts of your choice, maybe a quarter cup of nuts. My favorites are pistachios, because pistachios also have lutein and zeaxanthin. That's another fun fact. Of all the nuts, Pistachios are probably the only nut that have a considerable amount of lutein and zeaxanthin. It's what gives it that beautiful yellowish green color of pistachio. So add some nuts in there, and then milk of your choice, whether it's dairy milk or perhaps a plant-based milk, whatever milk you like, that you can tolerate. And then some ice and blend it all up.

And in one go you will be able to have a smoothly, depending on how much liquid you add to it will be anywhere from 8 ounces to 16 ounces, all in one go in one meal. So if you have a green smoothie with your breakfast every day, you will automatically get your five cups in. You're done for the day. You don't have to think about it. And also, that diversity of nutrients that go into the smoothie will cover a lot of those 30 nutrients that I mentioned that are important for Eye Health. So simple to do. I urge you all to try it. I know a lot of people will initially say, "Well, how does it taste? You know, it sounds great, but how does it taste with all those greens? Like, isn't it really bitter?" 

 

It depends on your taste buds. It can be a little bit bitter depending on which green you choose to put in. But if you want a little bit more sweetness, again, the berries are a wonderful way to add a little bit of natural sugar. You can include a banana if you'd like. You can include some apple slices. There are ways to kind of adjust it to your palate. So try it. You have to experiment with it.

 

Oh, another thing you can add to it, if you do want to just a little bit sweeter a little bit less bitter, are dates. Dates are wonderful to add to your smoothie as well. So check it out. Give it a try. Make it part of your daily routine.

 

So let's now move on to Strategy #2. And for those of you who are watching the video instead of just the audio, you'll see that there's a beautiful picture here of lots of different colored foods, and it is important to eat the rainbow.
 

18:57 Dr. Rani Banik
I'm sure you've heard this before - Eat the rainbow! But this is not what I mean when I say eat the rainbow? I'm not talking about eating Skittles or M&Ms, full of artificial colors and flavors. I'm talking about eating whole foods, again, most of which are plants. So eating whole foods all the various colors are there because they are indicative of nutrients in those foods. Specific nutrients give the foods their colors, the polyphenols, the anthocyanins, give the foods their colors. So eat lots of colors, and as you can see in this diagram, there are lots of different shades of each of the colors.

So you're going from, you can go from deep reds to lighter reds to pinks, even oranges, yellows, different shades of green, lighter greens, like from avocados or lime or green peas, to deeper greens, like from leafy greens. And then also in this, in this rainbow, you're going to include darker foods, like the purples, the blues and the blacks. Yes, you can include those darker colors as well. Purples, things like eggplant. Purple purple cauliflower, purple cabbage, purple onions, purple corn. There are so many different foods that you can even include some blacks, like I was saying earlier, blackberries. There are darker, darker foods that are really rich in nutrients.

 

So include all the various shades in your rainbow of colors. And when, one way you can track this is you don't have to count every single nutrient, every single food, but you can count your colors.

 

One easy tip I give my patients is try to strive for the rule of 21. Most people will eat three meals a day, seven days a week, so that's an average of about 21 meals in a week. What I tell my patients is to include 21 different colors in the week. The rule of 21: 21 meals, 21 different colors.

 

And maybe, if you do this as a family, you can make it a fun family challenge. Make a chart, put it up on your refrigerator, and check off who has had which color for the week, and try to see, you know, who's going to win in terms of the amount, the number of colors in a week. And you'll see it's not that hard. It's actually a fun kind of an exercise to do.

 

So we're going to take a very short break, and then we'll go on to Strategies #3 and #4. You've been listening to The Eye-Q Podcast™ with me, Dr. Rani Banik. We're going to take a short break, and then we'll be right back with more insights to help you raise your 'Eye-Q'!

21:37 Narrator
You might have heard that eating carrots is good for your eyes, but what if we told you that there are more foods that can do wonders for your vision, introducing Beyond Carrots - Best Foods For Eye Health A to Z, the new book by Dr. Rudrani Banik. MD. In this eye opening book, Dr. Banik highlights over 30 nutrients necessary for healthy vision and shares 40 delicious foods richest in those nutrients.

21:59 Dr. Rani Banik
Hi, I'm Dr. Rudrani Banik, and I'm here to tell you there's so much more to eye health than just carrots and just beta-carotene.

22:07 Narrator
In Beyond Carrots, you'll learn how to keep your vision healthy and vibrant by using the power of nutrition. Imagine being able to see the world clearly in all its beauty for years to come. To keep your vision healthy and strong, you need to go Beyond Carrots. Get your copy today of Beyond Carrots - Best Foods for Eye Health A to Z, available on Amazon. Take the first step towards healthier vision and protect your precious eyesight for the years ahead.

22:35 Dr. Rani Banik
Alright, I am back with The Eye-Q Podcast™. Dr. Rani Banik, America's Integrative Neuro-Ophthalmologist. So we've been talking about four strategies that you can incorporate into your diet to provide your eyes with the nutrition that they need, including the 30+ nutrients from a variety of different foods. So we are now up to Strategy #3, and this is one that I absolutely love to share, because I always get a little bit of a giggle or laugh out of this one. This is Strategy #3, is to avoid S.A.D. foods. What does S.A.D. stand for? So S.A.D stands for the Standard American Diet. Yes, what we're seeing here. So this picture is showing you lots of processed foods, high sugars, refined sugars, fried foods, just unhealthy type foods. Basically, junk food is the S.A.D. diet.

And I know a lot of people in the Western world rely on a S.A.D. diet for their nutrition, which is unfortunate, because the S.A.D. diet is really made out of foods that are not some of them are not even natural, but they are very unhealthy.

 

There are 3 components to the S.A.D. diet that you need to avoid. Number one would be refined sugars, where natural products have been basically stripped of their nutrients to make like white foods like, for example, white bread, white rice, these are very highly refined sugars and so and then also simple sugars, like just plain sugar- colas and juices that have a really high simple sugar content. You should avoid these as well.
 

24:18 Dr. Rani Banik
And instead of having refined sugars, you want to have more complex carbohydrates and whole grains, that would be an easy swap to make. Next would be foods that are ultra processed. You've probably heard by now that ultra processed foods are really bad for your health. They can promote inflammation. They can do a number on your gut health, on your skin, health on your immune system. Try to stay away from ultra processed foods that actually have a lot of chemicals in them, like a lot of preservatives, just not the way nature intended.

 

And then the other thing you should avoid as part of the S.A.D. diet are foods that are high in omega-6 fats. Now I'm not going to get into all the various different omegas. What they are and everything. But basically, what I'll share with you is that we should have been having a nice balance between our omega-3s, that are the anti-inflammatory omegas, and omega-6s, that tend to be the pro-inflammatory. So you want to in your diet reduce the amount of omega -6s and increase the amount of omega-3s and the omega-6s are, again, a lot of what you're seeing as part of this image here, unhealthy types of fats.

Keep that in mind when you're thinking about your diet. So again, instead of having a S.A.D. diet, it's best that you try to to switch over to a basically a whole grain diet rich in mainly omega-3 fats, very little omega-6s, and also avoiding those ultra processed foods and really opt for more raw foods rather than or whole foods rather than processed foods. So again, you can find a lot of information in my two books, Beyond Carrots and my companion cookbook, Dr. Rani's Visionary Kitchen.
 

26:08 Dr. Rani Banik
Now the fourth strategy, and sorry, by accident, I took out the slide for the fourth strategy, but I'm going to share it with you right now. The fourth strategy is to support your gut health. Now you may think, what does gut health have to do with eye health? I don't quite understand the connection. Well, emerging research has shown us that the gut, particularly the gut microbiome, is intimately linked to eye health.

 

You may have heard of the gut microbiome. We have over 40 trillion organisms in our body that make up the microbiome. Many of them live in the gut, and these are a collection of bacteria, viruses, sometimes even fungi that live in the gut. And many of these organisms that live in the gut are actually healthy organisms. They don't cause disease. They actually help us function. They help to produce vitamins like B 12 and Vitamin K. They help to keep away pathogenic organisms. They help to modulate the immune system. So the gut has a very close connection with the immune system.

 

The gut also helps to modulate neurotransmitters. The gut is responsible for creating about 70% of our neurotransmitters, including dopamine and serotonin. A lot of neurotransmitters are not made by the brain, but made by the gut.

 

So the gut microbiome is important for these various reasons, and we know from early studies that when there is an abnormality or imbalance in the gut microbiome, when there are too many pathogenic bacteria and not enough commensal bacteria, which are healthy bacteria, there can be disruption in the immune system or disruption in neurotransmitters. You want to support a healthy gut.

The research is early, but it's shown that there are certain unhealthy bacterial strains that may be associated with conditions like macular degeneration, dry eye, glaucoma, and also this is a big one, uveitis, which is inflammation of the eye. So we are just learning about the intricacies of all of this. It's not to say that there's a particular bacteria that you absolutely need to eradicate, or other bacteria that you absolutely need to boost. But in general, you want to support a healthy gut microbiome to support your eye health.

And how do you do that? Well, it's by eating lots of probiotics and prebiotics. Now, probiotics you've probably heard of, which are live bacterial cultures found in certain foods, usually fermented foods, or foods like yogurt or kefir or miso or kimchi or other soy products that are fermented. Those are great live probiotics that you can include in your diet, but also prebiotics, which are foods that are typically high in fiber, which the healthy gut bacteria feed off.

So for example, foods like and some of these are duplicates from the foods that I talked about before, like leafy greens, like spinach or colored greens, mustard greens, also certain nuts and seeds are great prebiotic foods. Also fiber rich foods. Broccoli and bok choy are part of this and other compounds like inulin. So these are all prebiotic foods that your gut bacteria just thrive off. So include lots of prebiotics in your diet to feed the probiotics, which are the healthy bacteria.

 

Again, the research is very early, but I think it's compelling, pretty obvious that we need to support our gut health for other parts of the body as well, but in particular for our eye health. So those are the four strategies.
 

30:00 Dr. Rani Banik
Now I'm going to recap everything that we talked about today. So we talked about what the best way to support your eyes is to have a diverse diet, rich in 30 plus nutrients. How can you get that diverse diet? The four strategies are: #1: eat a plant, rich diet; #2: eat the rainbow; #3: avoid S.A.D. foods, and #4: support your gut health. And so with those four strategies, you can really improve not just your vision health, but your whole body health as well.

 

With that, I'm going to wrap it up for today's first session of The Eye-Q Podcast™. I hope that this primer on ocular nutrition, on how to go beyond carrots, has really improved your understanding of vision health and nutrition and basically, it is really, really important. We know that there are studies now that it show that eating a healthy diet can help prevent against conditions like macular degeneration, help to reduce the progression of cataracts that can help with dry eye and we're just learning about other conditions as well, for example, optic nerve conditions like glaucoma and Labor's hereditary optic neuropathy, and perhaps even NAION, or non arteritic, anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, which is a stroke of the optic nerve.

All of these conditions can benefit from a healthy diet, not to mention common things like diabetic retinopathy and hypertensive retinopathy, and more on those conditions later. But again, eat healthy. Eat right for your sight. It will do your eyes good. It will do your body good. With that, again, I'm going to be wrapping up today's episode of The Eye-Q Podcast™, please put your comments below, and also remember to like and share and please leave a review.

Thank you so much. I look forward to the next episode of The Eye-Q Podcast™ and helping you raise your 'Eye-Q'!