(NaturalHealth365)  Western medicine has created a deadly communication gap.  Cardiologists monitor cardiovascular risk scores while ophthalmologists examine retinal blood vessels – both specialists are looking at the same deteriorating vascular system in the same patient.  Yet they never share information, never coordinate care, and never connect the obvious biological dots linking heart health to vision loss.

The result?  Millions of Americans are going blind from diseases that routine medical data already predicted years earlier.  A study published in Ophthalmology proves that cardiovascular risk scores calculated in primary care offices predict five major blinding eye diseases with remarkable accuracy, long before conventional eye exams detect any problems.

Your vascular system doesn’t recognize the artificial boundaries between medical specialties.  But the healthcare system does, and this fragmentation is costing you your eyesight.

What researchers discovered about the blood vessels connecting your heart and eyes

Scientists at UCLA analyzed electronic health records from 35,909 adults aged 40 to 79 as part of the “All of Us” Research Program.  They used cardiovascular risk scores calculated during routine primary care visits to track who developed age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, retinal vein occlusion, or hypertensive retinopathy.

The results demolish any pretense that treating body parts separately makes biological sense.  People in the highest cardiovascular risk category faced dramatically elevated risks for every single eye disease compared to the lowest risk group.  The high-risk group showed 6.22 times higher risk for macular degeneration, 5.93 times higher risk for diabetic retinopathy, 3.38 times higher risk for retinal vein occlusion, 4.47 times higher risk for hypertensive retinopathy, and 2.33 times higher risk for glaucoma.

These are massive red flags indicating that whatever’s threatening cardiovascular health is simultaneously destroying vision.  The Pooled Cohort Equations (PCE) score predicted eye diseases with remarkable accuracy, better than many screening tests ophthalmologists routinely use.

How medicine’s specialty silos create blind spots that cost you your vision

Your primary care doctor calculates your cardiovascular risk score, then files it away in your electronic medical record, where it never reaches the specialists who could use it to prevent vision loss.  Meanwhile, your ophthalmologist examines your retinas for disease that’s already started – damaged blood vessels, fluid leakage, nerve deterioration – but never requests that cardiovascular risk data because it lives in cardiology’s territory.

Except your cardiovascular system doesn’t stop at your neck.  The same blood vessels experiencing inflammation and developing plaque throughout your body also feed your retinas, and those retinal vessels are even more vulnerable because they’re smaller and face extreme oxygen demands.  Your ophthalmologist examines vascular damage while your primary care doctor monitors the risk factors predicting it – and they never compare notes.

Why specialists protecting turf costs you your vision

Medical specialization went too far.  Doctors became experts in individual organs while losing sight of integrated systems.  Nobody pays for cardiologists to call ophthalmologists to discuss their shared patients’ vascular health.

The current system profits from treating established disease.  Anti-VEGF injections for macular degeneration generate thousands of dollars per treatment for years.  Cross-specialty collaboration to prevent eye disease?  There’s no billing code for that.

Natural strategies to protect your integrated vascular system

Your body functions as an integrated whole, whether medicine treats it that way or not.  Real prevention requires addressing the vascular health systemically.

Optimize circulation everywhere simultaneously: Wild-caught fatty fish provide omega-3 fatty acids that reduce inflammation throughout your vascular system.  Organic dark leafy greens rich in nitrates boost nitric oxide production, improving blood flow from the coronary arteries to the retinal capillaries.  Organic berries, packed with anthocyanins, strengthen blood vessel walls throughout the body.

Support endothelial function: Include L-arginine and L-citrulline to support nitric oxide production, which promotes vessel dilation.  Add vitamin K2 (MK-7) to prevent calcium deposits in arterial walls, and aged garlic extract that improves endothelial function throughout your entire vascular network.

Address metabolic dysfunction: Stabilize blood sugar through adequate protein, healthy fats, and fiber while eliminating refined carbohydrates.  Support insulin sensitivity with chromium, alpha-lipoic acid, berberine, and cinnamon to reduce the inflammatory cascades affecting every vascular bed from brain to retina to heart.

Reduce systemic inflammation: Eliminate inflammatory triggers like refined seed oils, excess sugar, and processed foods.  Include anti-inflammatory compounds from turmeric (with black pepper), ginger, and green tea, and ensure optimal vitamin D3 levels (50-80 ng/mL) to modulate immune function.

Protect against oxidative stress: Support antioxidant defenses with vitamins C and E.  Include astaxanthin that protects cardiovascular tissue and crosses the blood-retina barrier to defend photoreceptor cells.  Add CoQ10, supporting mitochondrial function in energy-demanding tissues from heart muscle to retinal cells.

What you need to know about vision protection that your doctors won’t discuss

This study, analyzing nearly 36,000 people, proves what should be obvious: you can’t separate eye health from cardiovascular health.  The same inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, and vascular damage affect both.  Yet the healthcare system treats them as unrelated problems managed by specialists who never communicate until after preventable vision loss occurs.

Ready to learn how vascular health protects against vision loss?

Jonathan Landsman’s Eye Health Docu-Class features 23 holistic eye doctors and researchers, who reveal the truth about preserving eyesight through holistic health approaches.

Discover how cardiovascular health predicts eye disease risk years before symptoms develop, which nutritional strategies protect the delicate vascular network feeding your retinas, natural protocols for reducing the inflammation destroying both heart and eye health simultaneously, the critical connection between blood flow optimization and preventing macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy, and comprehensive strategies addressing root causes rather than treating eyes and hearts as disconnected organs.

Sources for this article include:

Aaojournal.org
Medicalxpress.com