1. If potassium intake < 4000 mg daily, encourage the non-diabetic patient to consume additional fresh fruit such as bananas, oranges, cantaloupe, or tomatoes.
2. If food folate < 500 µg (mcg) daily, suggest ingesting additional raw, fresh fruits and vegetables, especially green, leafy ones like kale and spinach. Raw vegetables include Brussels sprouts, red cabbage, asparagus spears, string-beans, broccoli, chick peas (soaked 24 hours in refrigerator), spinach, yams, or hazelnuts. Fruits include avocado, cantaloupe and oranges.
3. Avoid added sugar which depletes potassium. Sucrose intake greater than 11 teaspoons significantly increases the risk for contact-lens intolerance and dry eyes.
4. If food-ascorbic acid ? 400 mg, the solution is an even greater intake of raw, fresh fruits and vegetables.
5. If food pyridoxine (B6) ? 4 mg, encourage switching to high-in-protein foods that may be eaten safely either raw or rare-cooked. For example, raw walnuts, hazelnuts or spinach, or a rare fillet of salmon (cooking fish or meat well-done depletes most of the available pyridoxine).
6. Conventionally prescribed diuretic drugs deplete potassium and, along with aspirin, contribute to DES and contact-lens intolerance. Take note: conservative supplementation with B6 and C can create diuresis while ameliorating dry-eye syndrome.
7. Especially in cases with arthritis, add chondroitin and glucosamine sulfate to the diet (100-500 mg QD).

The single most effective therapeutic measure is increasing the intake of fresh, ripe, raw fruits of all kinds and vegetable salads, while decreasing intake of refined or highly processed foods that are poor and unbalanced in vitamins and minerals. Fresh fruits are excellent balanced sources of potassium, calcium, magnesium, food-ascorbic acid, food-folate, food pyridoxine, food thiamine (vitamin B1), and glucose-tolerance-factor chromium - all the essential factors for the metabolism of sugars found in fruits.

Type 2 (non-insulin-dependent) diabetics, depending on the severity of their condition, may not be able initially to handle a markedly increased intake of fruit. However, they may benefit from a gradual increase in fresh fruit, if monitoring blood sugars, and especially from increased intake of fresh, raw vegetable salads without dressings.

At the minimum, introduction of daily raw salads as a complementary therapy improves the effectiveness of oral supplements. It appears likely that DES oral supplements that include vitamins B6, B9, and C will demonstrate enhanced ability to turn around DES. The key message is that a simple dietary therapy is the best alternative treatment for DES. It has resulted in a high recovery rate for all patients, regardless of the severity of their DES.

More on the web at: www.NutriOptom.com.