Do you know that a high salt diet can lead to cataracts?

Developing cataracts is one if the lesser-known possible consequences of eating a high salt diet. - See http://www.saltmatters.org/site/uploads/PDFs/SRHP%2025+table.pdf - See also http://wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

I went for an eye test today and was told I now have tiny cataracts

I went for my biennial eye test today and was informed that I don't need new glasses but that I now have a tiny cataract in each eye. Cataracts are one of the many adverse side-effects that can result from taking prescribed steroids. I am a steroid victim and I am confident that the steroid medication I took for many years is the main reason I now have these very small cataracts. 

I'm not at all worried about this development because I am confident that my long avoidance of added salt and salty food, and my present low carbohydrate/high fat way of eating (sometimes called a ketogenic diet) will greatly reduce the likelihood of the cataracts growing to become big problems.

Update: 5th July 2014. Sadly I was mistaken in what I stated in my second paragraph. My confidence was misplaced. The cataracts are now much bigger and are making it much more difficult for me to see clearly. The optometrist told me yesterday that they will inevitably continue to grow.

Crumpled faces

A couple of weeks ago I watched a very interesting TV programme but found that I was at times distracted by the presenter's face. Such a crumpled face! This was an older man, but by no means an old man. I felt sorry for the owner of the face, as I always do feel sorry for people with crumpled, 'quilted' faces. I think how difficult it must be to wash the face, to clean each wrinkle and furrow, each soft, wobbling line. I wondered why the fellow's face was so crumpled: it could not simply be that he had been out in the sun too much most of his life.

A few days later, by strange coincidence, I came across a possible explanation. Strange, because in all my life I had never heard about it before. The likely answer seems to be GLYCATION. - Go on! - Look it up using your favourite search engine! - It seems that glycation can occur when protein and sugar combine in the body. The Advanced Glycation End products (AGEs) that result are undesirable signs of accelerated ageing, which can include wrinkles, cataracts, peripheral nerve damage and many more. So if your poor face has started to look crumpled, or you'd rather like to prevent it ever starting to look crumpled, perhaps you'd like to cut down on the sugar and sugary stuff you eat. Stay as sweet (and young and beautiful) as you are by avoiding the sweet stuff! And reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes...

Steroid victims say GPs gave no warning: archived article from 1995

Very occasionally, I come across sad evidence of the long, long years prescribed steroids have been harming patients, and the comprehensive lack of any effective measures being taken to STOP doctors catastrophically harming their patients. I came across one yesterday.

In this archived article from The Herald, Scotland, we read:

"HUNDREDS of Scots suffering from the side-effects of steroids have claimed they were never warned by their GPs about the drug's dangers.

They claim steroids have caused them to endure crippling illnesses like the bone-crumbling disease osteoporosis, as well as angina, diabetes, cataracts, weight gains, and skin disorders."

In 2011, this is still the situation. The medical profession's ignorance/negligence in the matter of prescribing powerful, potentially harmful/dangerous drugs, including steroids, but many other classes of prescribed drugs too - antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-epileptics, and more - is staggering and scandalous.
If you are a steroid victim, or know someone who is a steroid victim, or victim of some other prescribed drug, there is helpful information on these pages:

• Steroids and HRT

• Amitriptyline and other antidepressants

SSRI anti-depressants increase risk of developing cataracts

Some anti-depressant drugs are associated with an increased chance of developing cataracts, according to a new statistical study by researchers at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute and McGill University. The study, based on a database of more than 200,000 Quebec residents aged 65 and older, showed statistical relationships between a diagnosis of cataracts or cataract surgery and the class of drugs called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), as well as between cataracts and specific drugs within that class.

See physorg.com article.

And remember Anti-depressants work 'no better than dummy pills'

Children should wear sunglasses because their eyes are more vulnerable to damage from the sun than adults' eyes are.

Children should wear sunglasses from three - Telegraph

Extract:

"Children as young as three should wear sunglasses to protect their eyes, according to opticians.

Industry figures claim parents are putting their children's eyes at risk by ignoring the dangers of the sun's harmful rays.

Their comments follow new research which shows that, by the age of 18, children will have absorbed 80 per cent of their lifetime exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light.

Children's eyes are more vulnerable to damage from the sun than adults' eyes because the cornea, lens and fluids are clearer, allowing more light to reach the retina.

Exposure to UV light increases the risk of cataracts (the clouding of the lens), pinguecula (the thickening of the white of the eye) and pterygium (a growth over the surface of the cornea)."

It would be best to read the whole article as there is quite a lot of detail.

Cataracts are also one of the many conditions that are often linked to salt sensitivity and fluid retention, and can be prevented or made less severe, or their progress slowed down, by lowering salt intake.

Improve/safeguard your health and lose weight by eating less salt! - Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)