Dr. Benjamin C. Lane, OD, MS, MPH, CNS FAAAS, FAAO, FACN, FCOVD

DR. BENJAMIN CLARENCE LANE is the widely reported researcher-author who discovered the importance of the trace-mineral chromium, the chromium-to-vanadium ratio, and the B-complex vitamin "folate" in the prevention and reversal of nearsightedness, the regulation of the pressure inside the eye, and the energy equations of eye focusing. In 1991 he reported tothe Retinal Vascular Disease session of the Assn. for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology the stunning differences in dietary and environmental risk factors between the three most common forms of macular degeneration of the eye. Similarly, he has shown that different dietary and environmental risk factors are perversely associated with promotion, respectively, of the various glaucoma pathologies and vitreous degenerations. His study on the effect of dietary indiscretions on the tear film and extended-wear contact lenses was featured in the journal Ophthalmology.

Dr. Lane has earned six degrees, respectively from Princeton University in philosophy of science with minors in math and physics, Pennsylvania College of Optometry in optometry, State University of New York in vision and child development, New York University in experimental psychology and visual psychophysics, Columbia University in human nutrition and in environmental health sciences in public health, with emphasis on nutritional ophthalmology and eye-disease epidemiology. His most recent dissertation research at Columbia looked at dietary and environmental risk factors in human cataractogenesis. Currently, he is Director of the Nutritional Optometry Institute and sees patients in clinical practice in the 64-story Galleria Building on East 57th Street in Manhattan and in Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey.

Dr. Lane's previous achievements as developmental and disease/disorder preventive optometrist, visual psychophysicist, and ophthalmoergonomicist have included discoveries in the basic mechanisms of functional photophobia, discoveries as to changes in retinal vascular circulation with vision-training therapy (VT), and his research which reconciled conflicting theories on the role of ocular eye focusing (accommodation) in the elevation of intraocular pressure. A more recent study elucidated the roles of chromium and lead in influencing eye-focusing ability in attention-deficit disorder in children.

Dr. Lane was one of two Americans invited by the All-Union Academy of Ophthalmology and the Health Ministry of the former Soviet Union to lecture to the Moscow International Symposium on Myopia, and he was again one of two Americans invited to address the Moscow International Ophthalmoergonomics Symposium. He has been invited to return to teach one week each at two medical schools in Russia and two medical schools in Ukraine, and has been invited to return to Moscow in December once again to address the Moscow International Myopia Conference.

Dr. Lane is a past president of the New York Academy of Optometry. He is Director of the Nutritional Optometry Institute and practices as a developmental-preventive optometrist specializing in eye/vision disorder epidemiology and nutritional optometry. He is a diplomate in Binocular Vision and Perception of the American Academy of Optometry and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the American Academy of Optometry, the American College of Nutrition, and the College of Optometrists in Vision Development, and has served many years as Chair of its Nutrition Committee, as well as Co-Chair of the Nutrition Committee of the Vision-Care Section of the American Public Health Association. For the fourth year in a row he chaired the Nutritional Epidemiology Research in Vision and Epidemiology Special Interest Group (NERVO) at the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology, the world's largest eye-research meeting. On June 25, 1998, he presented his new metabolic cataract study to the International Congress of Ophthalmology at Amsterdam, Holland. Three times he has been awarded the New Jersey Optometric Association's Scientific Achievement Award. He also is recipient of two research grants from the American Optometric Foundation and one from the Illuminating Engineering Research Society.

Since October 8, 1994, he has hosted 78 weekly hour-long radio programs, "The Better Vision Through Nutrition Hour," on a 50,000-watt AM-radio station serving southern New England. Recently he has been featured on New York's WEVD (AM 1050) as a regular monthly guest of "Vision Quest."

As already noted, Dr. Lane was an invited speaker at the International Congress of Ophthalmology in Amsterdam, 6/25/98, and presented a major invited lecture to the 12th Afro-Asian Congress of Ophthalmology in Guangzhou, China in November and chaired their Metabolic Ophthalmology Symposium. He presented two new studies to the International Society on Metabolic Eye Disease Symposium in Reykjavik, Iceland in July, 2000 and two new studies at the VIIIth International Conference on Myopia in Boston, also in July. He lectured five hours to the Middle-Atlantic States Optometric Congress in October 2000 and two hours at the New Life Expo in New York on October 21st, and presented a major lecture on functional photophobia and binocular fusion to the Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association (NORA) Multi-Disciplinary Conference, March 25, 2001. At the invitation of the European Society of Ophthalmology, Dr. Lane presented the update of his vitreous pathology/vitreous floaters study on June 4 and his updated metabolic cataract study on June 5, 2001, to the European Congress of Ophthalmology at the world-class Congress Center in Istanbul, Turkey.

First drafts of three new books are virtually complete.

When a Senior at Princeton University he designed and arranged the construction of the Princeton Ski Bowl on Bearpen Mountain in New York. At Columbia University Dr. Lane was elected President of the Student Body of the School of Public Health, and he received the first award of the School of Public Health for Leadership and Service to the Student Body and the University (1989). In 1998, William L. Dickinson High School, New Jersey's second-largest high school, inducted Dr. Lane along with another physician and six other alumni to its first non-athlete Hall of Fame.