Carrots contain antioxidants that can support your eye health and vision, but eating them won’t give you perfect sight. It’s most accurate to say that incorporating carrots into your diet can help you maintain good ocular wellness.
So, how did this myth get its start, and how true is it? This article will broadly discuss if and how carrots can help vision issues and what carrots do for your eyes.
Carrots can help with eye health because they contain a lot of beta-carotene—an antioxidant that the body uses to produce vitamin A. Vitamin A, in turn, has a host of eye-related benefits. Two of its biggest ones are:
It strengthens low-light vision. Your eye uses vitamin A to make a pigment called rhodopsin that aids your sight in dim lighting. It helps maintain the cornea. A vitamin A deficiency, if severe enough, can lead to corneal ulcers and other issues. It’s distressing to think about, but your cornea can actually “melt away” if you aren’t getting enough vitamin A.
In addition to beta-carotene, carrots also contain another antioxidant: lutein. Studies have shown that lutein—perhaps even more than beta-carotene—may help slow the progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is a disease that can drastically impact vision. Finally, antioxidants are generally helpful in offsetting cell damage caused by free radicals (molecules with unpaired electrons).
Scientists are still exploring the capabilities of these antioxidants and how they can impact the body. It’s important to note that most studies administer beta-carotene and lutein within supplements rather than having participants eat a ton of carrots. Also, there’s a good chance that you already get enough vitamin A through your diet. It’s only when you’re experiencing a vitamin A deficiency that you’d need to worry about vision loss, night blindness, and other problems.
If you’re looking to get the maximum amount of beta-carotene from your carrots, research shows that cooked carrots are the better option. Eating your carrots cooked rather than raw enables your body to absorb the beta-carotene in them more efficiently.
