Does Exercising Affect Our Eyes?

When you go out on your daily run, you’re usually thinking about how great your body will look in your latest outfit, or how you want to be as healthy as possible and be able to run after your giggling kids. However, there are added bonuses to working out that we’ve just begun to scrap the surface of! While research into the effects exercise plays on our vision is still fairly limited, a few studies have examined this topic deeper. This is what they’ve found.

Studies tend to show that cardiovascular disease and age-related macular degeneration (or AMD) are actually more similar than we thought - and prevention against them requires much of the same conditions. On top of that, besides being parallels, they are also closely related; therefore, since we know that exercise makes our hearts healthier, we can assume that it too helps protect our eyes. To further prove this, one study specifically indicated that generally speaking: the average person without any kind of eye disease was physically active. Two other studies followed a jogging group and discovered that basically for every one mile jogged per day, the risk of AMD decreased by ten percent! So, compared to basic cardiovascular problems and disease, it is a pretty safe to say that exercise can help prevent against age-related macular degeneration to the same effect.

What about other diseases and vision problems? Let’s discuss some additional research... Type II Diabetes is generally caused by poor eating habits, dormancy, and high levels of blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol. One of the nearly-immediate symptoms of diabetes is diabetic retinopathy - which through complications with one’s diabetes can cause eventual blindness. One obvious way to side-step diabetes is with proper exercise. Adequate exercise helps you to keep your blood sugar levels steady and of course, ultimately lower your risk for diabetic retinopathy. However, with this said, if you already have diabetes (and/or diabetic retinopathy), be sure to consult a doctor before beginning any kind of work-out regime as research also indicates that improper exercise can actually harm your eye’s sensitive retina, and increase probability of retinal bleeding.

While we know that cholesterol can cause a mountain of problems (like the discussed Type II Diabetes above), it can also be associated to one of the leading causes of cataracts. Cataracts - probably the most commonly-known vision problem out there - can be oftentimes be traced back to oxidation and inflammation. This is important because both oxidation and inflammation can be combated with good cholesterol from proper exercise. According to one study comparing the physical activity of its constituents, the less physically active group were seven times more likely to get cataracts later in life.

Therefore, while research is still growing and in some ways fairly limited on the issue, it can be said that exercise truly helps in preventing eye illness. So what are some other ways to help in keeping your vision healthy? First and foremost, make sure you’re going to your eye doctor regularly. It could be very likely that your prescription eyeglasses are out of date and you need an updated version! Furthermore you’ll want to make sure to buy glasses that can help your eyes at all times. Should you need to get some sports glasses for your work-outs, do it! Which brings us to the last, but certainly not the least: get proper exercise! Your body - and your eyes - won’t be able to thank you enough, and you will definitely “see” the difference!

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About the author

Hillary Glaser is a social networking specialist and expert in cross-media promotion, currently working on promoting prescription eyeglasses. She is the Director of Marketing and Special Projects for GlassesUSA.com - the easiest way to buy glasses online, which now offers free shipping on all US orders with the code FreeShip10.

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