How to make sense of all the conflicting information about diet

[Mike G]

Hi,

I am very confused about the information available on diets to help manage dry eyes (and also ocular rosacea) and I'm hoping board members can help me out. There seems to be about a thousand different approaches to this: anti-inflammatory diets, specific food/chemical intolerances (including things like Salicylate and Histamine intolerance), alkaline diet, etc etc etc. These are often conflicting and require significant dietary changes to implement, so are not done lightly.

From the reading I have done it seems that:
1. Diet may help some people but doesn't seem to help everyone
2. I have occasionally come across papers like this (this one is for rosacea and I'm assuming that makes it relevant for ocular rosacea): http://www.sciencedirect.com/science...42356508001559 that suggest that diet can be a factor but most medical professionals I have seen are not aware of them.
3. If you are a person for whom diet change may work the main method is just to try different diets, but you are looking at doing each diet for at least 2-3 months and you will probably need support from a dietician to make sure you aren't harming yourself.
4. There is some contention about the scientific validity of a number of intolerance/sensitivity tests that some professions use.
5. A lot of people say that X diet/approach is great from their anecdotal experience but there is very little research or other evidence that shows that these approaches work (so is their improvement actually coming from the source they think it is?)

So what I'm hoping some people on the board will have some information about is:
1. What evidence based testing/screening procedures accepted by the general medical community are people aware of that may actually be helpful for determining a diet problem? I would be great to have a list of tests that I could work through with my GP.
2. I'm starting to do this, but I was wondering if anyone had collected or listed research papers on the links between diet and dry eyes (and ocular rosacea) - it has been very time consuming doing the research and then actually understanding it so any assistance would be great.

Many thanks

Mike

[gormz]

Mike,

As far as the medical tests go, stick with ones that doctors are familiar with. In general, the intolerance/sensitivity tests are bunk. http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/...e-science-say/ . The ones that are valid are testing for celiacs (gluten allergies). Most likely the only way to find out if your body doesn't like a certain food is through an elimination diet and keeping a food journal. You can google a list of the top food intolerances, remove them from your diet for a bit and then slowly introduce them one at a time. Good diets for this are like the SCD/GAPS diet or paleo. Also for an approximate check as to what nutrients you are missing you can type in a sample meal plan on a site like nutritiondata and see what youre missing.

As far as the literature goes i think its pretty hard to find a consensus on the perfect diet or research supporting it. There are so many factors that go into health and to actually conduct a study to control for all the variables and for the people adhere to the diet religiously is pretty near impossible. Added to that that different people do better on different food groups carbs vs fats, fats vs protein,etc based on genetics, it might never be known.

Ive certainly read a lot of papers on diet and nutrition but im sorry i dont have a list for you. Google scholar or pubmed searches would probably be your best bet. I think there are some universal truths that will help everyone no matter what such as exercise, everything in moderation, get enough rest, avoid stress as much as possible, avoid seed oils, avoid too much sugar, avoid toxins in your food and environment, avoid processed foods, eat probiotics, and eat a wide variety of fruits and veggies.

Personally diet has been working well for me and my eyes have been improving. This is after i have tried pretty much every medical treatment out there and nothing worked. Only after i started researching nutrition and applying it have my eyes improved. I pretty much do the GAPS diet and use some paleo lifestyle tips. Marks daily apple and chris kresser are two of my favorites for health updates because they really do the research on what they post. Also my diet is an ever changing thing. Its bascially like im conducting a research experiment on my self to see what my body runs optimally on and to see what helps. What may not help at first may help later on and what may help for me may not help for you.

Sorry if the post seems confusing at times but thats because the whole diet thing is an enigma. Theres so much thats not known about diet/nutrition and i think it will be a long time before we figure it out. BTW i did research on this for months and have come to a lot of the same conclusions as you. Trial and error and common sense are your best tools to finding out what works best for you.

Tyler

[KyleDryEyes]

I agree with Tyler (NOT on the GAPS diet), but rather you need to experiment with diet on yourself. I stumbled on correlating my dry eyes with diet after improving my diet to increase my running performance. I've been keeping a food journal and noting when I eat something besides fruits and veggies, like meat or dairy. Every time without fail dairy has been an issue for me. If I eat dairy, 2 or 3 days later my eyes are very red and dry. 2 or 3 days after that they clear up and are back to normal. This is also true for beef. The 2 or 3 days makes it very difficult to correlate a specific food, which is why keeping a journal is important. There is a saying that "Every day with DES is like a box of chocolates...You never know what you're going to get." Not for me anymore. So keep a food journal. I've been eating fruits and veggies for the last 7 months and now the only time I have issues is if I'm not eating enough overt fats. Just 1 avocado a day is all I need.

There have been studies on omega-3 to omega-6 ratios and how a good ratio helps the eyes. I think that may be true. But they say it is good to take fish oil supplements for dry eyes to increase the omega-3 in your diet. Meat and dairy are high in omega-6 and cause inflammation in the body. So cutting them out automatically improves the omega-3 to 6 ratio and perhaps why my eyes are better without the meat and dairy. I have not had any fish in 7 months or any supplements whatsoever.

I agree it would be nice if there were lots of studies that proved such and such diet is optimal for dry eyes, but it may be diets are individual. Here's my list of do not eat foods: Dairy, Beef, Eggs, packaged foods (i.e. twinkies, ding dongs, candy bars, etc.). Try eating a whole food plant based diet for 6 weeks to see if that improves your eyes. Then add other foods in 1 at a time to see which ones cause you issues. You may find a similar list as mine.

Kyle

[soaps]

Hey Kyle

so good to hear u r into ratio of omega 6:3.

I heard this by chance and its really interesting. iv switched my oil to low ratio. but wasn't aware of meats having high omega 6.
Looking into nuts now.
Yes avocados r great too and natural fats is crucial in a healthy diet.

I still don't understand how drs recommend omega 6 considering its pro inflammatory.

[Nomad]

KyleDE...I found out recently, almost by accident, that meat and dairy worsen my dry eyes. I have Soj. Syn. I have always wondered why S Williams, the tennis star, became a Vegan! I'm also drinking more water...looking for good quality water and I take Fish Oil by Life Extension. I saw one time on Dr Oz an expert who was testing all the fish oil tabs on the market and he said few were either not contaminated or had the correct labeling. He mentioned two superior products and one was LE. See my post at Triumphs ...

[Dog2012]

Totally agree ..even more i have consistently have worsening dry eyes if i take GLA ..omega 6 advertise as a good for dry eyes along with Fish oil..