Costco Connection - August 2011

PAID ADVERTISEMENT

You Won’t Believe Your Eyes!

Maintaining eye health can be challenging at any age, but it becomes more difficult as we grow older. After the age of 40, eye health may start to decline. By the year 2020, it is projected that more than 40 million Americans may have difficulty maintaining eye health. 1 Clearly, eye care deserves our attention right now to safeguard our future.

Taking care of our eyes is vital to being independent throughout our life. So, we need to protect our eyes as much as possible. One critical way to do that is to guard against damaging ultraviolet rays. This is similar to the way we protect our skin against those same rays when we use sunscreen.

You probably have learned from news reports that lutein supports vision health. It is one of the carotenoids that is found in the human macula and has been studied extensively. However, did you know that another key carotenoid for eye health is zeaxanthin? It too is found in the human macula. Lutein and zeaxanthin may act as filters for ultraviolet light, and they also fight free radicals.*

Both of these ingredients are so important that the National Institutes of Health has a study underway to determine the specific benefits of this combination of ingredients to support eye health.*

Lutein and zeaxanthin can only be derived from the foods we eat; our bodies can’t produce them. They are found in a typical diet, and in our bodies, in a ratio of 5: 1. The problem is—who eats a typical diet? Supple-mentation may be the best way to ensure getting the right balance of these ingredients.