For Dr. Glen Swartwout, vision has always been more than just a sense. It’s been the lens through which he’s shaped his life’s work. His story began in second grade when classroom struggles revealed an undiagnosed vision issue. His father, a pioneer in behavioral optometry, prescribed Optometric Vision Therapy, transforming him from a C student to a straight-A achiever.
That life-changing experience sparked a passion. By high school, Dr. Swartwout was working as a Vision Therapist in his father’s practice, where he saw firsthand the profound impact of vision therapy on patients’ lives. In the 1970s, the field was evolving rapidly, expanding from addressing learning-related vision issues to tackling stroke and head trauma rehabilitation. Dr. Swartwout envisioned pushing these boundaries further by incorporating his growing interest in natural medicine — integrating nutrition, botanical remedies, and energy medicine to unlock new therapeutic possibilities.
But the path took a dramatic turn during his internship when he was diagnosed with glaucoma, a condition that, even with the best care, could leave him blind by age 50. Rather than accept this fate, he embraced the challenge head-on. Encouraged by his ophthalmology professor, he began researching the root causes of blindness and exploring ways to prevent and rehabilitate degenerative eye diseases like glaucoma and macular degeneration.
Today, Dr. Swartwout is a leader in integrative eye care and a renowned advocate for natural therapies, known for challenging the limits of conventional medicine. He has authored over a dozen technical books on natural medicine, including groundbreaking works on healing blinding eye diseases. For nearly 40 years, he has also been developing innovative energy-healing tools. Beyond helping thousands of patients worldwide regain their vision, Dr. Swartwout has guided hundreds of eye care professionals in adopting natural medicine techniques to better serve their patients.
In this exclusive conversation, he shares how macular degeneration affects vision, his research and breakthroughs in the field, and why he believes the future of eye health lies in natural alternative treatments.
1. Macular degeneration is a significant concern for many. Could you explain what it is and how it affects vision?
Macular degeneration is currently the leading cause of what is still officially classified as irreversible blindness. The macula is the central area of the retina, where we can discern detail. While the anatomy of the macula was described as early as 1720, it only became observable in the living eye in 1851 when Hermann von Helmholtz invented the ophthalmoscope. We begin to see the first clear descriptions of what we now call Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) in the early 20th century. Since then, the incidence has grown to where now 1 in 3 Americans over the age of 75 suffers from this condition.
What happened after 1851 to trigger an increasing wave of AMD? The invention of the cotton gin was in 1793, but the toxic byproduct known as cottonseed oil was only in 1866 that it was first marketed as a cooking oil. With the growth of food processing since then and the introduction of other seed and vegetable oils such as soybean oil, corn oil, and canola oil, the average American now consumes an average of 62 pounds of these oils each year. These oils are all rich in Omega-6 fatty acids, which are used to produce inflammation so the immune system can clean out foreign substances.
In contrast, the retina and brain rely mainly on DHA, an Omega-3 fatty acid, for health and function. Traditional diets typically supply a 1:1 ratio of these two types of essential fatty acids. The modern American diet is now at a ratio of somewhere between 1:15 and 1:25 Omega-3 to Omega-6. The extreme excess of Omega-6 promotes chronic inflammation which is damaging throughout the body, including the retina.
2. Why is macular degeneration linked to aging?
The first sign, often noticeable in your 40s, is trouble seeing at night. Over time, toxic fatty deposits called drusen form in the retina, which is when AMD is usually diagnosed. These deposits can distort vision and lead to vision loss. Interestingly, drusen resemble brain deposits seen in Alzheimer’s, often called “Diabetes Type 3” in functional medicine. This connection hints that high sugar and refined carbs may play a role.
Conditions like metabolic syndrome, obesity, insulin resistance, and diabetes are also linked to AMD. These issues trigger inflammation, oxidative stress, and blood vessel damage, all of which harm the retina. People with diabetic retinopathy (DR), which initially affects peripheral vision, are 2-3 times more likely to develop AMD, as DR causes reduced blood flow and oxygen in the macula.
Poorly controlled diabetes worsens circulation throughout the body, sometimes leading to severe complications like gangrene. Similarly, the macula suffers when blood flow and nutrients decrease, accelerating vision problems with age.
As we age, the macula’s health declines due to reduced blood circulation — about 30% is lost between ages 40 and 80. Since the macula has the highest metabolism in the body, it depends heavily on oxygen and nutrients. Thankfully, recent advances in energy medicine can restore this lost circulation. These therapies, easily used at home, have shown remarkable results, even reversing severe circulation issues like gangrene and preventing the need for a scheduled amputation.
3. What recent advancements or breakthroughs in your research or treatment give you hope for reversing macular degeneration?
Most AMD clients and practitioners using our Accelerated Self Healing technologies report improvements in macular health and vision.
Since founding the Optometric Center of Tokyo in 1982, I’ve explored natural therapies for preventing and treating AMD. At the Hawaii Center for Natural Medicine, Harvard-trained retinologists shared remarkable cases: patients with wet AMD — some legally blind — experienced halted retinal bleeding, reduced drusen, less scar tissue, and restored vision within months, without surgery or medication. These findings are detailed in the updated book Macular Degeneration… Macular Regeneration.
Frustrated by limitations in existing supplements, I developed over 150 Functional Formulations, including comprehensive Macular Wellness remedies. Key carotenoids — Lutein, Zeaxanthin, and Meso-zeaxanthin — are separated to avoid absorption competition and tailored to support specific parts of the macula. Lycopene, crucial for filtering light in the blood, and Saffron-derived carotenoids like Safranal and Crocin, known to enhance visual acuity, were also included. Astaxanthin, a powerful antioxidant, offers protection against blue and UV light damage.
For advanced AMD, we designed specialized remedies. Lipid Cleanse and Lipid Zyme target cholesterol and toxins in drusen. AngiogenX addresses abnormal blood vessel growth in wet AMD, while Clear the Way helps reduce scar tissue. These formulas are meant to complement professional care, ensuring safe and effective healing support.
4. Are there particular lifestyle changes or preventive measures people can take to reduce their risk of macular degeneration?
A traditional diet such as the Mediterranean diet is an essential foundation for prevention and healing. Getting the Omega 3 to Omega 6 ratio back to 1:1 should be a central goal. Seafood can supply Omega 3 essential fatty acids, including a good amount of DHA needed by the macula. When eating seafood, avoid larger fish like tuna, which are also high in methylmercury.
To prevent absorption of the mercury in smaller fish, eat it with organic strawberries if you can. Research found the fiber in strawberries to be the best binder of methylmercury. If you can’t eat or can’t get strawberries, the second best is chlorella. When you supplement Omega 3, rather than using fish oil, which must be highly refined and processed to remove the toxins that accumulate in the food chain, I formulate with whole algae oil. Because it is from the base of the food chain, it is clean, so we can use the whole intact oil. That includes phytoceramides, which have many benefits, including for the cell membrane of every cell.
5. How do genetics and aging play a role in this condition, and can advancements in gene therapy offer solutions?
Genetics are no different today than they were before industrial food processing, when AMD was essentially unknown, so changing gene sequences should not be necessary. What is vitally important is epigenetics, which is the functional pattern of which genes are active and which are dormant.
The goal here is to activate healthy genes and turn off any disease or stress-related genes. This is accomplished by energy and information medicine. We analyze stress frequencies in the voice and feed these back at a cellular level to enhance epigenetic activity. This is done with multiple technologies.
In one method, we coach clients remotely through the internet and phone and a special biofeedback device connected to their computer. This allows us to retrace and clear the origins of stress patterns even back as far as transgenerational patterns of inheritance that lead to patterns of disease that run in the family. We rely on a second system that also provides remote analysis of stress frequencies in the voice, with balancing information added daily to their drinking water. This system is showing remarkable and rapid changes in tissue culture studies currently being performed at UCSD.
6. Looking ahead, what do you envision for the future of eye health and treatment for macular degeneration?
An effective healing method for macular degeneration involves a special water technology, widely used in Japan since the 1960s, to treat chronic conditions. This water contains molecular hydrogen, a powerful antioxidant, and its smaller clusters penetrate cells 10 times better, improving nutrient delivery and detoxification. It also rehydrates and energizes depleted cells, including those in the macula. Advances in water science reveal this “living water” supports cellular metabolism, even when mitochondria are impaired, as in AMD. Additionally, photobiomodulation therapies using red and infrared light enhance mitochondrial function and recharge cellular energy, promoting macular health and repair.
My mission was to end blindness by 2020, and in some cases, that has been achieved. In fact, for myself personally, I was expected to be blind by 2006. Instead, my diagnosis and my prognosis were completely transformed by 1989. Today, over 35 years later, my vision continues to be normal. For others, there is new hope for the potential to prevent blindness and even regenerate vision after it is damaged.
I am looking to collaborate with other eye care practitioners and research centers to continue developing our methods of Accelerated Self Healing. By educating both the public and the professions about the advances we have been making for over 40 years, I look to bring awareness to our potential for healing, even in those challenging situations that we have been taught are hopeless or irreversible.
We are committed to making our formulations, our methods, and the science behind them accessible to more doctors and their patients. I believe that the biggest breakthroughs will come with the publishing of clinical research, which can be initiated on a single-subject case-control model to quickly provide significant statistical data to doctors who rely on evidence-based research to optimize their practice results. As Albert Einstein famously said, “The future of medicine will be the medicine of frequencies.” The way it looks through my eyes, that future is now.
The interview is edited for length and clarity.
