Vitamin A (retinol) plays a vital role in helping your eyes work correctly, by supporting retinal pigment production to enable nighttime vision.
Vitamin A deficiencies can cause various eye issues that are treatable through treatment.
Vitamin A Deficiency
Vitamin A (retinol) plays an essential part in our vision. It helps your retinas produce pigments necessary for nighttime illumination and keeps eyes moisturized so they function normally. A vitamin A deficiency prevents production of these pigments, leading to night blindness; and drying out of corneas may result in xerophthalmia (also known as Bitot’s spots or xerosis).
Most people obtain their Vitamin A needs through diet alone, including meat, dairy products, dark leafy greens and yellow/orange fruits and vegetables. You can find Vitamin A supplement forms as well. Deficits in Vitamin A consumption tend to occur more commonly in developing nations due to poverty and limited education about nutrition; liver or absorption disorders also play a factor. Although vitamin A deficiency is uncommon here in the U.S. it still can lead to eye health problems and other complications that require treatment.
Dry Eyes
Additionally, visiting your primary care physician and ophthalmologist on a regular basis is crucial for treating any underlying conditions that contribute to dry eyes, such as rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes, thyroid abnormalities or asthma. Medication such as anti-depressants, decongestants diuretics or blood pressure medication may help decrease tear secretions as well.
Vitamin A is essential to the ocular surface and production of visual pigments in the retina, including rhodopsin – the pigment responsible for low light vision – produced in our retinas. Without enough of this vitamin A in our systems, vision in low light conditions could become impossible – leading to night blindness known as xerophthalmia if our eyes become severely dry due to insufficient vitamin A levels.
Treatment of xerophthalmia can often reverse its symptoms. Night blindness often improves within hours or days of receiving vitamin A therapy; Bitot’s spots and corneal ulcers often regress and disappear with appropriate therapy.
Night Blindness
Vitamin A deficiency impairs your ability to see in dim lighting by diminishing production of rhodopsin, an important protein produced by rod cells that distinguishes light from darkness. Night blindness may also be caused by genetic conditions like retinitis pigmentosa or eye diseases like cataracts and glaucoma.
An eye specialist can perform a comprehensive medical exam to identify and address your night vision issues, and assist in treating them. If nearsightedness or cataracts have contributed to night blindness, corrective lenses may restore it while simultaneously improving daytime vision as well.
Your best defense against night blindness lies in eating foods rich in vitamin A, such as carrots and leafy green vegetables, along with taking vitamin A supplements if necessary. Be mindful to follow recommended dosage amounts as too much can be harmful. Likewise, those suffering from liver diseases or Crohn’s may find it harder to absorb nutrients that support eye health.
Corneal Ulcers
People deficient in vitamin A often develop eye ulcers, which are painful open wounds that bleed and result in vision loss and scarring. Ulcers are caused by germs entering through small abrasions on the eye’s surface.
Ophthalmologists will conduct an eye examination using a bio-microscope called a “slit lamp”. He or she may also use Fluorescein dye to detect corneal ulcers.
An corneal ulcer is an urgent eye emergency. Seek medical assistance as soon as you notice symptoms such as red, swollen or painful eyes to ensure proper care is received quickly.
This CME activity will explore the causes, classification criteria and common predisposing factors of corneal ulceration. It will highlight the significance of prompt and thorough slit lamp examination, careful corneal scraping for analysis and culture purposes as well as using effective antibiotics when necessary, along with using steroidal eye drops when an infection has been cleared up.
