The Waterbury Democrat., 1942-01-15
vITAMINs AND THE EYES

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 Nutrition investigators have found
 that white rats kept on a diet ade-
 quate in other respects but freed from vitamin G (B2, riboflavin) de-
 velop cataracts, and some of them, such as Day and Livingston (Jour. of Nutrition, '34) regarded this de- velopment of cataract in experi- mental animals as better test than dermatitis (skin roughing or in- flamamtion), alopecia about neck, head and trunk, (alopecia means loss of hair), arrested growth and stomatitis (sore mouth), for def- ciency of this, entity or component of the vitamin B-complex. Restora- tion to the feed of an adequate amount of G (B2, ribofavin, or lac tofavin, as it is called in Europe)
 will sometimes arrest the cataract and may even cure it. But remem- Der, this applies to animal nutrition While there is some evidence that riboflavin def1cinency may be con- tributing cause of development of cataract in man, and supplementing the human diet with an optimal amount of this factor of the B. complex may arrest the progress or even bring about some improvement in vision in some cases of cataract in man, there is nothing more posi- tive we can say about it. Nothing more except this: In any circum- stance it can do no harm, at any rate, to bOop the daily intake of ribof1avin, best in its natural state as component of vitamin B-com- plex, to the optimal and keep it there for year or more and see, Oh, dear.
 Prolonged deficiency of vitamin B (B2, ribofavin, lactof1avin) in the diet tends to cause some common eye troubles which are seldom even suspected of being nutritional in nature but are casually regarded as incidental to or dependent ons "bad hygiene"-Whatever that may im- ply. The common complaints of in dividuals with such ribohavin defi- ciency are rednes and irritation of the eyes, tendency of the lids to stick together, obstinate chronic conjunctivitis, sometimes inflam- nation of covering of eyeball (cor- neal with pain and photophobia (extreme sensitivity to light) and excessive tear secretion. Also pa tients with ribof1avin deficiency complain of itching, burning and a sensation of roughness of the eyes. When such eye trouble, especially the injection of small blood vessels around the cornea or windows of eyeball, occurs with other manifes- tations of ribof1avin deficiency, such as reddened "chapped" lips, fiS- sures at the angles of the mouth, and scaly greasy seborrhea about the folds between nose and lip, the condition is probably due to ribo- fiavin deficiency, and the remedy is an adequate daily intake of vitamin B-complex as supplement- to the diet. ..ti.''..'
 The crystalline lens of the eye, in the healthy animal or man, con- tainS considerable vitamin c. In animal feeding experiments and re- gently in human practice, there have been many reports of benefit from increasing the vitamin c (ascorbic or cevitamic acid) intake in cases of opacity or clouding of the crystal line lens or early cataract. Best way to increase vitamin c intake is by including as much fresh fruit or fresh fruit juice or canned tomato or tomato juice Commercially canned, vacuum process, not home canned as possible in the daily diet.