Corneal arcus is a ring-like clouding at the outside edge of the clear cornea. It is composed of lipid (fat) and cholesterol. It is a normal, age-related finding after age 40. There is no treatment to undo the clouding.
Medical Establishment Party Line:
If you have cornea arcus before age 40, there is ~20% chance that you have hyperlipidemia. See your PCP to get your blood checked for a cholesterol/triglyceride imbalance. If the blood work shows hyperlipidemia, then you may try eating less fat/cholesterol and exercise, but most people take a pharmaceutical drug in the “statin” class to lower cholesterol.
The Real Deal as per Dr. Langford:
(Warning: the following is controversial, so do your own research…but I feel confident.)
What we are really concerned about is atherosclerosis, where hard plaques line the inside of arteries, which puts people at risk for death or disability via heart attack and/or stroke. DO NOT LET ANY DOCTOR GIVE YOU A STATIN DRUG EVER! They have terrible side effects and haven’t even been proven to lower risk of heart attack or stroke. It’s a big scam! Don’t worry about dietary cholesterol. Let’s back up.
Starting around the Eisenhower administration, bad science via political agenda named dietary cholesterol and fat as the cause of plaque in the arteries. THIS IS FALSE. Cholesterol is awesome! It is found in every cell membrane in your body! We need it. Dietary fat is awesome, especially saturated and monounsaturated (animal fats, coconut oil, butter, avocados, olive oil)! It is a wonderful source of energy that helps you feel full, so you eat less overall. There are some bad fats out there, like trans-fat, and most vegetable oils (high polyunsaturated) are poor choices due to high omega-6 content which causes inflammation.
So, what causes plaques? It is actually chronic inflammation. What gives us chronic inflammation? It’s our standard American diet, which is high in carbohydrates. Carbohydrates spike insulin. Chronic insulin response leads to insulin resistance and a fatty liver. Those lead to increased belly fat, high blood pressure, high blood triglycerides, lower HDL, and inflammation. Now our bodies are chronically stressed, which weakens our immune system. The cause of the rise in obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, stroke, heart attack, and even cancer has nothing to do with not enough pharmaceutical drugs to treat these conditions. It has everything to do with our diet. Even if our genes predispose us for those things, these genes are only being activated secondary to the changes our bodies experience because of our diet.
What to do?
I suggest changing your diet to low carbohydrate intake. The only carbs you need are from vegetables and some fruit. We can save sugar, corn, potatoes, rice, wheat and other grains for times of famine and feeding the pigs to fatten them up instead of ourselves. Please consider switching to what they call paleo diet, primal diet, atkins diet, ketogenic diet, or low-carb lifestyle. If you are taking diabetic, cholesterol, or high blood pressure medications, you will want to work with your doctor to rapidly taper off these drugs while eating paleo/primal/low-carb.
Please see visionhealtheye.com/lowcarb for a complete list of websites, podcasts, and books you can read to more fully explain this new paradigm in diet and health.
As an aside, consider steering clear of fungus (yeast/mushrooms/candida).
Now, let’s get back to corneal arcus. Will eating primal/paleo/atkins/low-carb help someone not get arcus? No one knows. A thin link was made between cornea arcus and blood cholesterol/triglyceride imbalance, but no one has tested incidence of arcus in populations eating low carb lifestyle. I am going to guess that it can only help.
