Night blindness or poor night vision is a common problem that many people don’t realize can be resolved with simple dietary changes that work within weeks. You may even be able to throw away your glasses like I did!
My husband and I recently decided to bite the bullet and convert our old family videotapes to digital format. These tapes were sitting uselessly in a cabinet collecting dust because we no longer had a machine that could play them. This was no small (or cheap) task since over 80 hours of footage required converting!
Getting this huge project done has been so worth it. The kids really enjoy watching footage of themselves as babies, old birthday parties, family events, and other fun goings-on throughout the years. Best of all, it’s all available in seconds with a click of the remote on the big TV screen!
Glasses for Poor Night Vision
One thing that really shocked the kids while they were watching some of the oldest footage from over 15 years ago is that my husband and I both used to wear glasses. My husband used to wear them all day, every day for nearsightedness.
In my case, I wore glasses in the evening or while driving at night because of night blindness.
In fact, none of the kids has any memory of either of us ever wearing glasses. With my oldest now 21, that is a long time to have tossed the specs for good!
“Why don’t you and Daddy wear glasses anymore?” they asked.
This is a very interesting question, one that I haven’t considered in a very long time. My husband and I both developed a need for glasses shortly after graduating from college. We wore them until around 2002 when our second child was born. After that, we just didn’t seem to need them anymore and gradually stopped wearing them altogether. Strangely enough, this happened for both us right around the same time!
The interesting thing is that my husband needed glasses for mild myopia and I needed them for night blindness issues. These vision issues are completely different and occurred for seemingly unrelated reasons.
So what changed during that time in 2002 that has allowed not one, but both of us the freedom to no longer need glasses?
The ONLY thing that changed was our diet
In late 2001, we discovered traditional eating.
I was immediately struck by the total logic and sense of ancestral approaches to health after reading Nutrition and Physical Degeneration and the classic cookbook Nourishing Traditions. Within days, we abandoned our lowfat diet and embraced healthy, whole fats. These include butter, cream, egg yolks, fish eggs, and high vitamin cod liver oil just like our ancestors enjoyed.
This change had the immediate effect of resolving my hypoglycemia problems through the stabilization of blood sugar and the elimination of sugar cravings. My panic attacks naturally resolved too.
The improvement to our eyesight was more gradual, however. It took place over a span of a few months. We both noticed about the same time that we really just didn’t need those glasses anymore.
How could traditional diet have made a difference?
In my estimation, it was the Vitamin A that made the difference for me. For Richard, it was likely the Vitamin D. Both of these critical, fat soluble vitamins in their natural forms are plentifully available in traditional foods revered by healthy, ancestral cultures.
Vitamin A Resolves Night Blindness
In the book Eat Fat, Lose Fat, authors Dr. Mary Enig and Sally Fallon Morell write in Chapter 4 about Stephen, a young electrician from Buffalo, New York who was struggling with night vision problems.
When Stephen learned that night blindness can be caused by Vitamin A deficiency, he decided to skip the synthetic A supplement pills. Instead, he took a whole food supplement like cod liver oil. Within 3 months, his night blindness had vanished.
Stephen’s experience almost exactly mirrors my own. Within a few months of starting on a traditional diet which includes natural sources of Vitamin A, my night blindness disappeared. What’s even more exciting, it has never returned in the ensuing 15 years. This is the brand I used.
What’s particularly compelling about my story is that when my night blindness was at its worst, I was taking a daily supplement that contained synthetic Vitamin A and beta carotene. Obviously, these Vitamin A sources were doing nothing to help my night blindness issues!
Only when I added natural Vitamin A from traditional foods did the night blindness disappear. This is a very important distinction.
Conventional medicine recognizes the benefits of Vitamin A in resolving night blindness. However, beta carotene and synthetic Vitamin A are considered as good as true Vitamin A. Clearly, this is not the case at least for some people like me.
Low Vitamin D and Mild Myopia
In my husband’s case, his mild myopia resolved at about the same time as my night blindness. In his case, though, it is likely that natural Vitamin D did the trick. Cod liver oil contains not only natural Vitamin A, but also natural Vitamin D!
Note that like me, he was obtaining most of the Vitamin D in his diet from a synthetic vitamin pill when he was experiencing vision problems. The synthetic Vitamin D did nothing to help resolve the problem.
The Vitamin D Council reports that Vitamin D deficiency appears to be related to the severity of nearsightedness.
2,038 people aged 13 to 18 years old participated in this large study. The researchers examined the participants’ vitamin D levels, evaluated each person for myopia, and noted the severity of the condition.
The researchers found that vitamin D levels were significantly related to the severity of myopia. This means that lower vitamin D levels were related to more severe myopia among the study participants.
Traditional Diet to Improve Night Vision
Did the addition of traditional foods to my diet and my husband’s diet resolve our vision issues?
While our story is only anecdotal and in no way scientific, the evidence sure does point in that direction!
Do you suffer from night blindness or mild nearsightedness that is causing you grief or the need for prescription lenses? If so, it’s certainly worth a shot to incorporate traditional fats like cod liver oil into your diet for a few months to see if it helps.
I can tell you that after more than a decade of not needing glasses for my night vision issues, I am certainly glad I made this dietary change!
Only Natural Vitamins A/D Help the Eyes!
I recommend these vetted brands of quality cod liver oil that are tested and guaranteed to contain only natural Vitamin A and D. If you wish to try some and see how well it works for yourself, use coupon code HealthyHome10 to get a discount!
I don’t recommend buying this particular supplement at the healthfood store. The reason is that the vast majority of commercial cod liver oil brands contain synthetic Vitamin A and D, which will not help your night blindness!
References
Eat Fat, Lose Fat
Vitamin D Council, New Study Finds Vitamin D Levels Related to Myopia
Vitamin A Saga
More Information
Cod Liver Oil Reduces Dependence on Painkillers for Rheumatoid Arthritis
I started needing glasses for night and distance about four years after becoming a mostly vegan vegetarian. Twenty-one years after that, I don’t remember why, I started eating two organic cage-free, then pastured, eggs almost every day. At some point I realized I could read street signs without glasses. At age 59 I passed the DMV vision test and no longer have that restriction on my license. And I definitely junked the vegetarianism, big time!
I am 74 and have no problem driving at night. I have glass lenses in my eye glasses. WAY better than plastic. Took a while to persuade the optometrist to let me have them but when he finally handed them over he said that’s what truck drivers use as they see better at night.
I also had this experience. I first got glasses about 5 years ago, for driving, movies, etc — distance events. The second time I went in my eyesight had improved, so I was switched to a weaker prescription. The doctor couldn’t explain it. I just tested at 20/20 yesterday, and have noticed that if try to put my glassses on (just to see if there’s a difference, I don’t wear them anymore), they don’t make any noticeable improvement to my distance vision. I correlate it to a WP-ish diet with CLO!
plz ma how do I get that cod liva oil to Enugu my location?
Hey Sarah
I would like to enquire how bad was your night blindness then ?
I am diagnosed with retina pigmentosa with the eye specialist had concluded it was due to hereditary .
Do you tink if the fermented cod liver oil will still help because my night blindness started way back from
2011.
Please advise . Thanks .
Mine was not that bad … I just needed glasses to drive at night.
I have been myopic since the age of ten! We try to stick to a nourishing traditions diet but its not perfect and I have taken cod liver oil on an occasional basis. My eyesight has remained the same for the past 18 years. I have a -4 weakness in both eyes..I never thought of this condition as curable. How mild was your myopia?