[Kim Jaeho's Life Story]<234> Why Is Glaucoma So Hard to Cure?

Many people experience a decline in quality of life due to eye diseases that develop with age, and a significant number suffer from blindness. Globally, cataracts, glaucoma, and macular degeneration are known as the three major causes of blindness. However, in South Korea, blindness caused by diabetic retinopathy?a complication of diabetes?macular degeneration, and glaucoma is more common than blindness caused by cataracts.

The number of glaucoma patients in South Korea increased by 20% over four years, from 810,000 in 2016 to 970,000 in 2020. Cataracts are very common, with 70% of the population experiencing them by age 60 and 90% by age 70. Cataracts can be easily treated with surgery. In contrast, glaucoma affects fewer people but is difficult to cure once contracted, and if it worsens, patients may lose their sight permanently.

The medical community states that untreated glaucoma eventually leads to blindness, but with appropriate treatment, damage to the optic nerve can be slowed, allowing patients to avoid blindness. Therefore, early detection through regular check-ups is crucial. However, the exact cause of glaucoma remains unknown, and the prevailing view is that it cannot be cured even with treatment. Why is glaucoma so difficult to cure?

Glaucoma is a disease in which the optic nerve, responsible for transmitting visual information from the retina to the brain, is damaged. The eye produces a fluid called aqueous humor that nourishes the eye. This fluid flows through the pupil to the front of the eye and exits via a drainage pathway located between the iris and the cornea. If this drainage channel is blocked by tiny deposits, the aqueous humor cannot drain properly, causing intraocular pressure (IOP) to rise.

For a long time, the medical community has believed that abnormally high IOP damages the optic nerve and causes glaucoma. Based on this view, glaucoma is diagnosed and treated by lowering IOP through medications, laser therapy, or surgery. However, these diagnostic and treatment methods have significant limitations.

Many glaucoma patients have normal IOP, and in South Korea, about 80% of glaucoma patients have normal or even low IOP. Existing diagnostic and treatment methods offer little help to these patients.

In the early stages of glaucoma, optic nerve damage is minimal, so there are generally no noticeable symptoms. As the optic nerve becomes severely damaged, the visual field narrows significantly, reducing the ability to perceive surrounding objects and respond to sudden situations, eventually leading to irreversible blindness. In the United States, about 10% of glaucoma patients experience significant vision loss, and approximately 5% of these become blind.

There is a part that the medical community tries to ignore?or perhaps wants to ignore. It is said that tens of thousands of DNA pairs among the 3 billion pairs (6 billion individual DNA molecules) in a single cell are damaged daily. These damages are repaired by genes within the cell itself. Cells that are too damaged to be repaired undergo programmed cell death (apoptosis), and their place is filled by newly created cells.

I refer to this system as the "best doctor" prepared within our bodies. When this best doctor fails to function properly, we fall ill. A very important fact is that even if there is no abnormality in the genetic program, poor lifestyle habits can prevent necessary genes from being activated, causing illness. When these poor habits are corrected, the best doctor resumes its work, and the disease naturally heals.

The medical community wants to hide the fact that the best doctor within our bodies solves bodily problems and wants people to believe that treatment alone resolves issues. For example, when someone contracts COVID-19, the best doctor inside the body activates immune cells to kill the virus and recover. Doctors may assist during this process, but many recover without medical intervention. While it is understandable that the medical community must charge for treatments to sustain itself, its role is often exaggerated.

Glaucoma is no different. All eye problems that arise during our lives are repaired by the best doctor encoded in the genes of eye cells. If poor lifestyle habits interfere with this recovery, diseases like glaucoma develop. Even if humans, who do not fully understand the complex and sophisticated genetic systems, find ways to lower elevated IOP, glaucoma does not easily heal.

Understanding how the best doctor within our bodies works through genes reveals that methods to prevent and cure glaucoma, or to boost immunity to prevent and cure COVID-19, are essentially the same. It is sufficient to abandon poor lifestyle habits that damage genes or prevent their activation and to create an environment conducive to gene function?a lifestyle called Newstart (refer to Life Story Part 6).

Among the eight components of Newstart, the first is a life diet that involves eating a variety of plant-based foods, including fruits, vegetables, and grains, in their whole form without selective eating. Along with this, it is important to reduce intake of sugar?which causes many problems when consumed excessively?as well as processed or refined bad carbohydrates, saturated fats, trans fats, salt, and alcohol.

Additionally, practicing the remaining Newstart components?exercise, water, sunlight, temperance, air, rest, trust, and love?is also important.

Jaeho Kim, Independent Researcher

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.