Natural Vision Correction: Does It Work?

Promises that natural vision correction can improve eyesight without medication, surgery, or glasses have been around for years. The principle is that simple eye exercises can restore normal vision. It's appealing - but it's just not true, say the professional organizations that represent licensed optometrists and ophthalmologists. In fact, most experts consider the claims of natural vision correction completely bogus.

WebMD talked to sources on both sides of this controversial issue.

What Is Natural Vision Correction?

Most practitioners of natural vision correction base their approach on the Bates Method, pioneered in 1919 by William H. Bates, MD, an ophthalmologist who wrote The Bates Method for Better Eyesight Without Glasses. Bates believed that the cause of nearsightedness, farsightedness, and other refractive errors was tension, and that relaxing the eyes would allow them to function normally.

Although practitioners have convincing testimonials from patients, natural vision correction is not recognized in the fields of ophthalmology or optometry. (Ophthalmologists are licensed physicians who specialize in refractive, medical, and surgical disorders. Optometrists are licensed healthcare professionals, but they are not physicians. They are primarily trained to evaluate vision, prescribe eyeglasses and contacts, and assess the health of the eye.)

Many of the people who offer natural vision correction have never attended an accredited medical school or optometry school. "The Bates Method is not taught in accredited schools of optometry and is not recognized by the American Optometric Association," says Susan Thomas, associate director of public relations for the association, located in St. Louis, Mo. "However some optometrists might be doing it on their own."

Followers of Bates claim that all the conditions normally corrected by eyeglasses can be eliminated, and some even claim to help or eliminate serious eye diseases, such as cataracts and glaucoma. However, as with many alternative therapies, there are few rigorous, randomized, controlled studies to back it up. Bates and his followers based their natural vision correction programs on observation, not research.

The Anatomical Fallacy

"The Bates Method is based on an anatomical fallacy," says Richard E. Bensinger, MD, ophthalmologist at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, Wash. and clinical correspondent for the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO). "He developed a system that has persisted as the basis for all systems that have been designed since. The fallacy it relies on is that external muscles that control the eye's movements control focus. But in fact, the eye has an internal focusing mechanism."

The ciliary muscles, attached to the eye's flexible lens, aid focus by creating or relaxing tension on the lens. In this way, the lens curves to accommodate close-up or distance vision. (Around age 40, the lens loses flexibility, a condition called "presbyopia." That's when many people discover their arms aren't long enough to hold a newspaper.) These internal muscles are separate from the external muscles that move the eye.

"When we put drops in the eye to dilate the pupil, they paralyze the focusing muscles," says Bensinger. "The evidence of the anatomical fallacy is that you can't focus, but your eye can move up and down, left and right. The notion that external muscles affect focusing is totally wrong."