Dull, strained, bloodshot, heavily pouched eyes can give you that "lost youth" look quicker than any other feature. Beauty advisers continually admonish their readers to avoid the frowning, strained expressions caused by tired, dull, under­nourished eyes. No optician has yet invented a pair of eye­glasses that will restore beauty and sparkle to dull, under­nourished eyes. You may bolster up your dimming vision with these mechanical aids, but eyeglasses certainly can't do anything to bolster your good looks and charm. I don't mean by this that you should cast aside your glasses. But I do say that you shouldn't perch a pair of glasses in front of your eyes, and then expect these purely external aids to bring your eyes back to the bright, sparkling beauty that only good health can give them.

Any unhealthy condition (and premature aging is most assuredly an unhealthy condition) of the body is quickly reflected both in the eyes, and under them. Nothing detracts more from a person's appearance of youth than darkly circled eyes. In fact, the art of clever make-up in the theatrical world makes liberal use of darkened circles under the eyes to create the illusion of dissipation, ill health or age in a character.

Dark, puffy pouches are caused by the condition of the skin underneath the eye socket. In this area the skin differs from that in other parts of the body. Pinch the skin on your arm, your thigh, your cheek, and you'll discover that a layer of fatty padding lies directly below the surface. But the skin covering the lower half of the eye cavity is much thinner and ½cks this basic under layer of fat.

This difference in skin texture has been arranged by nature to guarantee protection for the eyes, since the skin o£ the eye­lids and that under the eyes themselves must be extremely flexible to permit quick, effortless blinking. Obviously, if the skin around the eyes were as thick and as bulky as that in other parts o£ the body it would be impossible to wink quickly enough to protect the eyes when foreign substances threaten.

And because the skin under the eyes is so thin the condition of the blood flowing in this semi-transparent area may readily be detected. Healthy blood is naturally red, whereas blood darkened by impurities, lack of sleep or improper food im­mediately discolors the skin over the lower eye socket.

Blood that lacks oxygen and accumulates carbon dioxide (a waste gas from the burning of oxygen) takes on a bluish tint. This is particularly true of persons with anemia—a condition where the red blood cells do not contain enough red coloring matter (hemoglobin). So if you allow yourself to become—and remain—anemic because of an iron-deficient diet, you can expect the bluish type of low-hemoglobin blood that makes ugly dark circles under the eyes (not to mention the other uncomfortable, youth-destroying effects of anemia).

The high-starch foods (white breads, macaroni, spaghetti, noodles, white rice, pastries, cakes, heavy puddings, candies, soft drinks, alcohol) have a tendency to increase the amount of carbon dioxide in the blood, causing it to lose its rich, red color. This explains why a diet top-heavy with these artificial, high-starch foods and beverages can hasten the appearance of those unsightly, aging dark circles under the eyes.

On the other hand, fruits, particularly citrus fruits, fresh green and yellow vegetables, and the iron-rich foods that make good red blood (see Chapter 18) are the foods that will help clear up dark circles under the eyes, and guard against their reappearance. Not only will these nourishing foods cause the dark circles to fade, but your eyes themselves will gain an added sparkle from the richer blood built up by a planned diet.

The full story of vitamin A and healthy eyes was too well publicized during World War II with the Government's "carrots for aviators" program to need repeating here at length. Just a reminder that vitamin A not only corrects night blindness, but also protects against an ailment that causes a dry, thickened condition of the eye itself, leaving the eyeball lusterless and diseased. And if the foods you eat do not provide enough vitamin A to keep the tear ducts healthy, the eyes cannot secrete enough of the moisture that lubricates the eyeball and helps impart to it that glistening, sparkling look so necessary for attractive young-looking eyes.

Down at the University of Georgia, a study was made of 47 persons known to be suffering from a lack of riboflavin in their diets. Yet 18 of these persons appeared to be "well fed," and apparently had been eating an "average diet." No poverty-stricken, half-starved persons here—just ordinary, average-income persons like the rest of us. Yet their bodies— more particularly their eyes—were discovered to be famished for riboflavin.

All 47 of these riboflavin-deficient persons complained of trouble with their eyes—sensitivity to light, dim vision, an eyestrain which glasses did not remedy, burning sensations in the eyeball, extreme visual fatigue, a feeling of roughness like sand under the eyelids, watering, and bloodshot eyeballs. Six of the patients had cataracts, while the eyes of 18 others showed certain opacities that indicated cataracts were starting to form.

But a marked improvement was noted in the eyes of all 47 patients after 5 to 15 milligrams of riboflavin were added to their diets each day. In many cases, the sensitivity to light disappeared in only twenty-four hours. And the burning, itching and feeling of roughness under the lids cleared up within two days. More remarkable still, this increase of riboflavin in their diets caused the eyes of the patients with either formed or incipient cataracts to become normal again.

The most concentrated natural food sources of riboflavin are powdered skim milk, millet and sunflower seeds. Eating liberal amounts of these three delicious foods is one way to make certain that your eyes are receiving enough riboflavin to make them look and see better.

But how will you know whether you're getting enough riboflavin? Just take a look at your eyes in the mirror. If they are even slightly bloodshot, you can be pretty certain they need more riboflavin. Under normal conditions the thin covering over the entire eye contains no blood vessels. Nature devised a clever way of bringing oxygen to the outer eye without the need for a disfiguring network of blood vessels— the riboflavin in the blood back of the eye combines with oxygen in the air to supply the part of your eyeball that is visible.

But what happens to this ingenious oxygen-supplying system if there isn't enough riboflavin in the blood back of the eyes? To the devil, then, with the looks of the eye! It needs oxygen at all costs, so nature sets up a second-best system by creating small blood vessels to bring oxygen directly to the outer eye tissues.

It's when a lack of riboflavin makes nature resort to this makeshift oxygen-carrying measure that your eyes are said to be bloodshot, as indeed they are—shot through with tiny, newly created blood vessels. And who can look young and attractive, no matter how few or how many their birthdays, when the eyes suffer this disfigurement?

Although "spots before the eyes" in the earlier years rarely have any particular significance other than that of nervous^ ness, from the middle years onward they should be heeded as a warning that all may not be well with the eye.

"Cataract" is a word dreaded more and more as the years accumulate. And rightly so, for this is a serious disease of the eye that clouds the tiny lens inside the eye. (Contrary to popular belief, cataract is not a film or a growth; it is a clouding of the lens.)

Yet anyone can take dietary precautions to avoid cataract. We know that the more common type o£ cataract increases in direct proportion to the inadequacy o£ diet. (The less com­mon type of cataract, called traumatic, results from some physical injury to the eye, usually a wound or continual ex­posure to intense heat.)

When only skimpy amounts o£ riboflavin are supplied to your eyes, you may be laying the foundation for cataracts— and when this lack of riboflavin is coupled with an inade­quacy of the high-protein foods needed to provide ample quantities of certain amino acids, then ideal conditions are set up for the ocular lens to become clouded.

Since a planned diet can avoid the danger of cataract blindness, why take chances? The common type of so-called "senile" cataract that is brought on when the eye starves for riboflavin and high proteins is just as damaging to your eyesight—and to your appearance—as the cataract caused by an eye injury. Whoever spread the belief that an operation to remove a cataract is simply a matter of "peeling" the cataract from the eyeball couldn't have given out information any more remote from the truth. The surgical method of re­moving a cataract is to slit the eye, then squeeze out the clouded lens by means of pressure or suction—much as you would remove the pulp of a grape from its skin. After such an operation, the eye has no natural lens for focusing images on the retina, so an artificial glass lens must be worn in front of the eye. Obviously, this is only a makeshift to be avoided whenever humanly possible—for the sake of your vision, as well as your youthful appearance.

Almost every disturbance in the chemistry of your body may first make itself evident in your eyes. This is why many competent diagnosticians begin their hunt for symptoms with a thorough examination of the eye itself. Eyes that tire easily or become painful and bleary may mean that the blood sugar level is too high, that the blood formation is below normal, or that the liver is sluggish. These and other ailments can be noted first in the eyes, the body's "radar" for disease-finding.

This explains why I deplore the careless practice of con­sidering any change in vision as a matter solely within the province of the eyeglass fitter. No pair of lenses, no matter how skillfully prescribed or ground, can arrest the progress of an eye disease; they cannot provide nourishment for a starving eye; nor can eyeglasses clear up the bowel and gall bladder disorders that react directly upon the eyes, to say nothing of that master sight-dimmer, diabetes. Toxic ma­terials filtering into the bloodstream from starch-clogged intestines, or backing up from a disordered gall bladder and liver, make it difficult for the eyes to focus properly since they are being poisoned by the waste-laden blood which normally is supposed to nourish and cleanse them of their own impurities.

You didn't know there was any connection between your eyes and your bowels? Well, there certainly is! A doctor whom I met some years ago had been a victim of chronic constipa­tion for years. By the time he reached his sixtieth year, his eyes finally gave up the struggle, and refused to focus, even behind the strongest lenses he could buy. Knowing the an­tagonism that many of the medical profession show toward nutrition scientists, I hesitated to suggest what I was sure would relieve his failing vision. But I decided to take a chance anyhow. Surprisingly enough, he listened readily to my suggestions, no doubt scared by the thought of total blindness into taking advice from a "non-medical" man.

Here is what I told him: "Do away with all those high-starch foods I know you eat, for I've sat at the table and watched you stuffing them down. Confine your meals to high' protein foods like meat, fish, poultry, eggs, cheese, milk, and seed cereals. Round out this diet with whole grains, fresh and cooked fruits, and leafy, low-carbohydrate vegetables. Don't cheat! Then let me hear in about six months how you're getting along."

Seven months later, to the day, I received this letter from him: "You didn't think I'd do it, but I did! My bowels and I have reached an amicable working agreement. I don't choke them up with starchy foods any more, so they let my eyes alone. Life, it's wonderful—when your bowels and your eyes let you enjoy it!"

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