The promises sound too good to be true: Exercising your eyes will bulk up vision much as pumping iron builds up your biceps.
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| The See Clearly method is based on a school of thought that teaches that eye problems are caused by muscle weakness, not illness. So, the makers contend, exercising eyes daily, including rolling the eyes up, down, and to the sides, will strengthen muscles and thus improve vision. (Martha Rial/Post-Gazette) |
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You'll be able to throw away your eyeglasses, or at least avoid stronger prescriptions, says actress Mariette Hartley in advertisements for the See Clearly Method that are running in Pittsburgh and on other radio stations across the country.
The program is based on the theory that because we're heavy computer users and television watchers, our couch potato eyes don't move enough to stay healthy and need a good workout.
"The point is, you are taking your eye muscles and you are getting them tuned up, you might say." said David Muris, a Sacramento, Calif., optometrist and one of four authors of the See Clearly Method.
Although the program is promoted as "a safe, healthy alternative to glasses, contacts and even laser surgery," Muris acknowledged that no research studies have been conducted directly on the See Clearly Method. And the program has its share of skeptics in the mainstream medical community.
Can eyes be trained?
Can exercises really eliminate the need for glasses?
The authors of See Clearly are "behavioral optometrists," a broad discipline that embraces the theory that stress, diet and overall health affect vision and that the eyes can be trained or retrained to function more effectively.
The concept has its roots in the controversial beliefs of Dr. William Bates, an ophthalmologist who lived at the turn of the 20th century and who believed that stress, not heredity, caused vision problems. He said that with exercise, anyone could regain perfect vision.
Two of the See Clearly authors are among the more radical of the discipline who believe that exercise can change the shape of the eye, and thereby correct vision defects.
Under the method, exercises are to be done every day for 30 minutes. In one, you imagine your face as a clock and gently raise and lower your eyes toward each hour. In another, you focus on your thumb while you slowly move it away until it's blurry. Quickly moving your thumb back and forth while trying to maintain focus is called tromboning. Patients should see results in a month.
The program, owned by Vision Improvement Technologies, a marketing company in Fairfield, Iowa, costs $210 and includes 16 eye exercises, instructional videos and cassettes, a portable exercise card and a journal to chart progress. The $240 deluxe version includes a CD ROM.
See Clearly comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, and buyers have returned about 40 percent of the programs sold, said David Sykes, president and CEO of Vision Improvement Technologies.
Henry Ettinger, a New York City behavioral optometrist who is also pitching the product in radio advertisements, said he has tried the program on about 30 of his patients. About 20 have reduced the strength of their prescriptions, and three to five who had low degrees of nearsighted or farsighted vision no longer need glasses, he said.
Product literature claims the method makes eyes healthier and stronger by increasing the flow of blood and nutrients to the eyes, and that it is beneficial for eyestrain, near-sightedness and farsightedness, blurred vision, double vision astigmatism -- or a misshapen eyeball -- and presbyopia, which is poor vision due to aging.
The material also says the method "may have a positive impact on other vision problems and conditions, such as glaucoma, cataract, lazy eye, crossed eyes or macular degeneration," but should be used under a doctor's supervision.
Mainstream ophthalmologists scoff at these claims.
"That is just baloney," said Dr. Kimberly Cokerhan, a neuro-ophthalmologist at Allegheny General Hospital. "There is no evidence that I know of that this is an issue of blood flow and that exercising will take away refractive errors."
She actually tried the See Clearly method on two of her patients who had double vision for a month, but found no improvement in their vision.
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The story behind the story
The company that owns the See Clearly Method makes its home in Fairfield, Iowa, location of a campus of the university founded by Transcendental Meditation guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
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In a normal eye, the curved cornea bends, or refracts, light so objects can be focused on the retina. As the eye ages, the lens hardens and the muscles to which it is attached lose elasticity. Eventually the eye loses its ability to focus for reading.
In the nearsighted eye, the cornea is overly curved, causing the eye to focus in front of the retina. The cornea isn't curved enough in the farsighted eye, causing images to be focused behind the retina. An astigmatism occurs when the cornea is shaped more like a football and does not bring light to focus at a single point. Each condition causes blurred vision.
"There is no way exercising will change whether you need reading glasses or not, and the claim, at least in testimonials, that within weeks these people are seeing clearer and better? No way!" Cokerhan said.
Michael Earley, chief of the Binocular Vision Clinic and Pediatric Unit at Ohio State University's College of Optometry, had even harsher comments.
He talked to a product support representative for the See Clearly Method after many of his students told him about the bold radio advertisement claims.
"Everything the See Clearly representative said was absolutely wrong," said Earley, who teaches ocular anatomy. "He gave me facts on the eye muscle pulling on the lens and that is absolutely backward. He was absolutely anatomically and physiologically wrong on everything he said."
Early said eye exercises are beneficial to treat muscle spasms caused when people stare at a computer screen or read textbooks for a prolonged time without a break, but little else.
Confusing the consumer?
Of utmost concern, however, is Earley's fear that consumers could be confused by the way information is presented in the See Clearly promotional material and on its Web site.
"They are pulling up excerpts from journal articles and substantiating their claims with them," Earley said. "That's very misleading and it looks like it's deliberately meant to be. They make it look like someone did a study and were quoted on this system, and that is not the case at all."
Cokerhan agreed. "They make it sound so scientific, and people are so gullible."
As Muris said, no research studies have been conducted on See Clearly.
That's despite the fact that the program's Web site contains a "Research Studies" section that quotes some of the 1,500 articles and research papers published in medical journals on studies that the method is based upon.
In addition, the site says a "clinical evaluation" was performed on 21 people in 1999, and "the results suggest that the See Clearly Method is an effective alternative to traditional methods of vision care for people who are willing to devote a half-hour per day to exercising their eyes."
Muris said the evaluation was performed on patients in his office.
He added that, despite claims in the promotions, the See Clearly Method should not be used for glaucoma, crossed eyes or other diseases.
"We purposefully try to stay away from eye diseases. In fact, this isn't a program for eye diseases," he said.
When a reporter pointed out that the literature includes those diseases, Muris said the program was being "very aggressively" marketed and that he wouldn't sell to as many people as the marketing company does.
Muris acknowledges that the See Clearly eye exercises can't help everyone, and that the product has its limits.
"If someone is wearing real thick glasses and they want to throw away their glasses after a month or two, that is a stretch," he said. "But if their goal is to see better and become less dependent upon their glasses, yes, that is a realistic goal."
