Does saffron affects eyesight?

If you have recently noticed that you have weak eyes or have recently encountered new eye problems and your glasses or medical lenses do not help you, it is better to go for saffron. Because according to recent studies, there may be a natural way to improve and enhance vision using saffron.

The scientists at ARC Centre of Excellence in Vision Science and University of L’Aquila, in Italy, suggest the spice could reverse the course of blinding diseases and may hold one of the keys to preventing the loss of sight in old age.

The researchers led by Professor Silvia Bisti have shown that saffron has remarkable effects on the genes which regulate the performance of the eye’s key vision cells and not only protects the vision cells (photoreceptors) from damage, but may also slow and possibly even reverse the course of blinding diseases such as age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and retinitis pigmentosa.

A clinical trial with patients suffering AMD in Rome has found early indications that treatment with a dietary supplement of saffron may cause damaged eye cells to recover.

Saffron is one of the most expensive spices and comes from the dried stigma of the flower of the saffron crocus – it is used in cooking as a seasoning and as a colouring agent.

Saffron is native to IRAN and has a bitter taste and contains a carotenoid dye, crocin, that gives food a rich golden-yellow colour – it is a much-sought ingredient in many foods worldwide and widely used in Persian, Arab, Central Asian, European, Indian,Turkish and Cornish cuisines and in sweets and liquors. Saffron has also been used as a fabric dye, particularly in China and India, and in perfumery.

But saffron also has medicinal applications and a long history in traditional healing for the treatment of a variety of ailments such as menstrual pain, menopausal problems, depression, chronic diarrhoea and neuralgia – modern medicine has also discovered saffron as having anticarcinogenic (cancer-suppressing), anti-mutagenic (mutation-preventing), immunomodulating, and antioxidant-like properties.