b'to take cross-section images of the retina. The OCT unit arrived for the macular degenera- We make a living by what we get.tion study later in 2011. 4And once the study was completed the OCT remained with us atWe make a life by what we give.Bills insistence. Heretofore, MVC had beenWinston Churchill the first, not only in rural Morton but even in nearby cities, to provide retinal thickness analysis (RTA) using innovative technology from Israel. So, it was even more amazingno charge as a matter of course and that wastients to have optimal levels of HDL which that our practice now also had an OCT scan- that. There was no arguing with Bill.transports them. The WHAM chick study, ner available. Even the nearby optical sur- He helped one of my children and evennoteditsauthors,providesanexcellent gery center in Chehalis was yet to get one. my dying sister. When I visited him onemodel for understanding the role of HDL in The air was electrified with excitementtime and was coughing, he gave me zinc. Ifthe retinal uptake of lutein and zeaxanthin. 6 having these great men at our retreat thathe saw a need, he would fill it. He made aIn 2013, I wrote an article embracing sim-late Summer of 2011 as Bills macular-de- life with his habit of giving. ple nutritional therapy principles of provid-generationstudywasplannedandexe- ing nutrients and their transport to support cuted. We would see patients and gatherObservational Studies optimal function and structure of the mac-data by day, while Dr. Richer, Bill, ScottEarly in my entrance into the optometricula. 7By applying these principles, patients Tips, and Dr. Carroll would pore over theworld in 1994, Jim (not his real name) camecould possibly avoid or even reverse this data in the evening. And, indeed, the pa- to Medical Vision Center as our patient afterpotentially blinding disease. tients taking Longevinex showed a stabi- counseling at a practice in a nearby city. In lization of the macular degeneration andhis mid-seventies, he received the diagno- Hope Is the Most Important a reduced amount of drusen, which aresis of macular degeneration. He sold every- Prescriptionsmall, yellow deposits of fatty proteins (lip- thing and bought a motorhome. He said,Bill Sardi and Scott Tips figured strongly ids) that accumulate under the retina andIf Im going to go blind, I want to see allin my life in the years ahead. I worked with are associated with AMD. the places I missed. His city OD did notboth men from 2011 onward, and with Dr. In passing, during that time, Scott Tipsgive Jim empathy, much less any counsel- Stuart Richer as well. It was Dr. Richer who gave me a copy of Health Freedom Newsing, protocol, or any hope that he was notkindly reviewed my 2013 article, Best Kept with an article in it that he had authored ona victim to an admittedly serious diagnosis.Secrets to Prevent, Halt, or Even Reverse ractopamine (a steroid-like drug given toBut I understood simply by observation thatMacular Degeneration that went around food-production animals to increase theirseveral of our patients who had impaired fat di- the World being published first in the very lean mass at the expense of the health ofgestion or had their gallbladder removed were get- magazine Scott had shared with me, Health both man and animal). Overnight it turnedting diagnosed with macular degeneration yearsFreedom News, and later GreenMedInfo, Nexus meintoanactivist,leadingtomynowlater. Healthy fats support brain and eyemagazine, and other venues, giving people decade-plus of service with the Nationalfunction, heart health, and vitamin absorp- hope that they were not condemned to los-Health Federation, all while running a newtion, among other things. It is crucial that fating their precious eyesight. 8Nine years later, B&B business and working at MVC. be broken down in order to be of use to theI still receive emails related to the article and body, particularly for proper eye functionDr. Carroll has consulted with people from Try Giving Yourself Away and to add structure to the cells. But I knewother countries because of the emphasis on The OCT scanner was Bills generous giftbetter. Jim had sold everything for nothing.digestionfat digestion in particularto to us in our work, of which he never said aHe had a chance to avoid blindness. prevent macular degeneration. single word; and amazingly, over the nextAround this time, Dr. Jonathan Wright,Dr. Richer asked to use my discoveries on twelve years I witnessed Bill giving moreM.D., who was my doctor and helped methe impact of fat digestion, and HDL trans-and more without regard to being reim- understand the role of nutrition in medicalport to the macula in his lecture slides. In bursed. If ever anyone needed anything,practice as we had attended his brain-bog- turn, he shared his slides with me on the it was given to them by Bill. We joked thatgling conferences that he hosted with Dr.impact of nutrition on the macula, picture you cannot outgive God, nor Bill Sardi! Alan Gaby, M.D. for several years in a row,worth a thousand words images that I In the 1970s, I read a book called Try Giv- was using hydrochloric acid (HCL) as partused in my article.ing Yourself Away by David Dunn. 5Bill Sardiof a protocol for macular degeneration. was the epitome of selfless giving. The ben- But I was struck by the gallbladder/fatYou Are Not Only What You Eat efits rippled to countless thousands, maybedigestion association with AMD and soughtbut Assimilate & Transporteven millions. Even up to the last month ofto restore lost eye function by suggestingTaking patient histories in the 1990s, not-his life when I stocked the supplements atbile salts or sunflower lecithin to these pa- ing who had had gallbladder surgery to MVC from his company, Lifespan Nutrition,tients to help break down fat-soluble luteinremove the presumably non-functioning Bill sent me supplement stock but no invoice.and zeaxanthin. And to ensure delivery oforgan, I noticed that these patients tended When queried, he replied that it was given atthe carotenoids to the macula, I advised pa- to accumulate weight for years and many 16 H ealtHF reedomN ews /s priNg2022'