Have you ever wondered why your doctor seems to delight in shining a bright little flashlight into your eyes every time you see him or her? It turns out that your eyes are more then just the “windows to the soul” they are also an effective way to check your overall health and diagnose illness such as diabetes, HIV, cancer and cardiovascular disease before any symptoms ever develop. Take a look at what an article posted on WebMD, September 8, 2011 has to say about it.

“The eyes truly are unique real estate,” says Andrew Iwach, MD, associate clinical professor of ophthalmology at the University of California at San Francisco and executive director of the Glaucoma Center of San Francisco. “They’re the only place in the body where you can see a bare nerve, a bare artery, and a bare vein without doing any cutting.  And the disease processes we see occurring in the eye are probably occurring in the rest of the body.”

“Everyone should have a comprehensive eye exam by age 40,” says Ruth D. Williams, MD, an ophthalmologist and glaucoma specialist in Wheaton, Ill., and, like Iwach, a spokesman for the American Academy of Ophthalmology. “People who have a family history of eye problems should be seen earlier, and anyone who is having eye trouble should see a doctor right away. But people shouldn’t wait until they experience symptoms to see a doctor, because many eye problems are silent,” meaning they cause no symptoms

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