Since childhood, we have long been told that eating carrots will improve their vision. However, now researchers say that yellow and green vegetables, including peas, sweet corn and broccoli, contain chemicals that may help protect the eyes.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin studied the diets of 1,700 American women aged between 50 and 79 to see if diet affected their chances of developing eye ailments. Each woman was asked to provide details about what she typically ate some 15 years earlier.
The researchers found that women under 75 were less likely to develop age related macular degeneration (AMD) if over the 15 years they consistently ate lots of vegetables including, leafy green vegetables, sweet corn, squash, broccoli and peas.
The vegetables contain carotenoids – a powerful biological antioxidant that the scientists say may protect AMD that affects two million Britons and is the leading cause of blindness among people over 50.
However, the scientists, writing in the journal Archives of Ophthalmology also said their results could simply be due to chance.
They have therefore called for more long-term prospective studies and clinical trials to be conducted to confirm their findings.