A new study completed by a team at Harvard Medical School has found that eating green leafy vegetables every day could lessen the risk of developing glaucoma. This risk could be reduced by 20%-30% when compared to people who ate a limited amount of these vegetables.
This study involved following over 100,000 men and women over the age of 40. While none had glaucoma when the study began, almost 1,500 had developed the disease within 25 years. The group that ate the most leafy greens had a significantly lower risk of developing glaucoma than participants within the other groups.
Researchers have suggested that in glaucoma, there is an impairment involving blood flow into the optic nerve. Nitric oxide is essential for regulating blood flow into the eye, and since green leafy vegetables are high in nitrates, this could explain the recent findings.