{"product_id":"bilberry-multi-60-capsules","title":"Bilberry Multi","description":"\u003cp\u003eWith Pine Bark, Lutein, Zinc, Selenium \u0026amp; Vitamins · 60 Capsules\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eEach capsule provides\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVitamin C\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e40mg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e50%\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eZinc\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e5mg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e50%\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eManganese\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e2mg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e100%\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCopper\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e0.5mg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e50%\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eSelenium\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e55μg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e100%\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eVitamin E\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e6mg α-TE (9 I.U.)\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e50%\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e*NRV = Nutrient Reference Value\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eAlso provides\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003ctable\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003ePine Bark**\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e1250mg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eProviding : 79mg of Proanthocyanidins\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eBilberry Fruit**\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e550mg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eLutein Esters\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eEquivalent to Free 7.5mg Lutein - 15mg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eCitrus Bioflavonoids\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e5mg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eProviding : 3.00mg of Hesperidin**\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003ctr\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003eZeaxanthin\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003ctd\u003e2mg\u003c\/td\u003e\n\u003c\/tr\u003e\n\u003c\/table\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e** = Equivalent weight from extract\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eWhen you start to notice your eyes by the end of the day\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLooking for bilberry extract? Here is ours: Bilberry Multi (With Pine Bark, Lutein, Zinc, Selenium \u0026amp; Vitamins, 60 Capsules), made in the UK.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMaybe you noticed it about a year ago. By 9pm your eyes feel a little dry, a little tired, a little reluctant to focus on the small text on your phone. The drive home in the dark feels harder than it used to. Your reading glasses have crept up the bridge of your nose. You're not having a serious problem. You're just having a \u003cem\u003emodern\u003c\/em\u003e eye day — eight hours of screen, two hours of phone, an hour of TV, and almost nothing for the eye to look at that is more than two metres away.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost generations didn't put their eyes through this. Our grandparents looked at the horizon a hundred times a day. They saw shadows in candlelight, depth in fields, distance in walked roads. The modern eye lives in a flat box at thirty centimetres for most of its waking life. The retina is a metabolically intensive piece of tissue — it uses more oxygen, gram for gram, than almost any other organ in the body — and the nutrients it would have got from a foraged hedgerow diet are not always coming from a supermarket trolley.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis little bottle is one quiet answer. Twelve plants and nutrients. One capsule. A way to put some of that lost colour back into a part of the body that depends, more than most, on colour and pigment.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe bottle, in your hand\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA clean cream pot, the green band of our label running around it like a forest line. Sixty vegan capsules inside. The dose is gentle — one capsule, one to three times a day, with food. Most people take one with breakfast or lunch and find that's plenty.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat's how plants in this category tend to work. Not with fireworks. With patience.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe story of bilberry\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBilberry — \u003cem\u003eVaccinium myrtillus\u003c\/em\u003e — is the small dark cousin of the cultivated blueberry. It grows wild from Iceland to the Caucasus, in acid heathland and mountain woodland, on knee-high shrubs that you have to crouch to pick. In the British Isles it is the \u003cem\u003ewhortleberry\u003c\/em\u003e of the West Country, the \u003cem\u003eblaeberry\u003c\/em\u003e of Scotland, the \u003cem\u003ebilberry\u003c\/em\u003e of Yorkshire. In Sweden it is \u003cem\u003eblåbär\u003c\/em\u003e, in Finland \u003cem\u003emustikka\u003c\/em\u003e. The fruit is smaller than a cultivated blueberry, deeper purple-black, juicier, and tastes more wild — sweet on first bite, with a faint resinous edge that no greenhouse fruit ever quite achieves.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat sets the bilberry apart from its supermarket cousin is the colour goes all the way through. Cut a cultivated blueberry in half and the flesh is pale green. Cut a bilberry and the inside is the same deep ink as the skin. That difference is the sign of one of the highest natural concentrations of \u003cem\u003eanthocyanins\u003c\/em\u003e in any fruit — the deep purple pigments that give the bilberry, the elderberry, and the acai berry their character.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe legend that everyone in this country has heard once goes like this. During the Second World War, RAF pilots flying night raids over occupied Europe ate bilberry jam before takeoff and reported sharper night vision in the cockpit. The story may or may not be literally true — it has been told for so long that the historians have lost sight of the original source — but it is true to a quiet older tradition: in northern Europe, the bilberry has always been considered the eye fruit. The Provençal herbalist of the seventeenth century knew it. The Scottish \u003cem\u003ecailleach\u003c\/em\u003e knew it. The Latvian grandmother knew it. We use 550mg of bilberry fruit extract per capsule, drawn from concentrated wild-harvest fruit, alongside the rest of the formula.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003ePine bark — the bark of the Atlantic Ocean coast\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the \u003cem\u003elandes\u003c\/em\u003e — the great pine forests of south-west France, planted in the nineteenth century to stabilise the dunes — and in the long-needled stands of \u003cem\u003ePinus massoniana\u003c\/em\u003e in southern China, the inner bark of the tree carries a quiet treasure. \u003cem\u003eProanthocyanidins\u003c\/em\u003e — a family of polyphenol compounds, deep red-brown, related to the tannins in tea and red wine. The Atlantic French have been grinding the bark of the maritime pine and brewing it as a tea since at least the sixteenth century — a French Canadian explorer's diary from 1535 records the indigenous Iroquois teaching his men to drink pine-bark tea against scurvy on the Saint Lawrence river.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eModern extraction concentrates the proanthocyanidins from the bark into a fine reddish-brown powder. We use 1,250mg of pine bark equivalent per capsule, providing 79mg of standardised proanthocyanidins. They sit in the formula in the same way the bilberry sits — both belonging to the wider polyphenol family, both with a long folk reputation for the small blood vessels of the body, including the ones that feed the back of the eye.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eLutein and zeaxanthin — the two yellow pigments inside the eye itself\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you cut a healthy human retina open at the back, you will find a small bright yellow spot called the \u003cem\u003emacula lutea\u003c\/em\u003e — Latin for \u003cem\u003eyellow spot\u003c\/em\u003e. It is the part of the eye responsible for sharp central vision. The yellow comes from two pigments — \u003cem\u003elutein\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003ezeaxanthin\u003c\/em\u003e — both of which the body cannot make from scratch and must take in through food. They are abundant in dark green leaves: kale, spinach, watercress, parsley. They are also abundant in marigold flowers (\u003cem\u003eTagetes erecta\u003c\/em\u003e), the orange flower from which the supplement industry now harvests them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA diet that includes generous amounts of dark leafy greens delivers them in real food form. A British supermarket trolley often does not. We use 15mg of lutein esters per capsule (equivalent to 7.5mg free lutein) plus 2mg of zeaxanthin — a meaningful daily contribution, alongside whatever salad you put on the plate.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eCitrus bioflavonoids — the white pith the supermarket throws away\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhen you peel an orange, the bitter white layer between the skin and the segments is \u003cem\u003ethe pith\u003c\/em\u003e. Most of us scrape it off and bin it. The pith is where the bioflavonoids of the citrus fruit are concentrated — a family of compounds, including \u003cem\u003ehesperidin\u003c\/em\u003e, that have been used in southern Italian and southern French folk medicine for centuries as a \u003cem\u003etonic for the small blood vessels\u003c\/em\u003e. It is from this folk reputation that the eye-and-blood-vessel category of supplements was first built. We use 5mg of citrus bioflavonoid complex per capsule, providing 3mg of standardised hesperidin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVitamin C — the orange tablet, but better understood\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVitamin C\u003c\/strong\u003e (40mg, 50% NRV) — the most familiar nutrient in the bottle. The food safety regulator allows the wording: \u003cem\u003evitamin C contributes to normal collagen formation for the normal function of blood vessels\u003c\/em\u003e — and the small blood vessels of the eye are part of that story. \u003cem\u003eVitamin C also contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress\u003c\/em\u003e — the wear-and-tear process of being alive that the polyphenols in this formula are also part of.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe four trace minerals — Zinc, Manganese, Copper, Selenium\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMost of this article has been about plants. Four of the ingredients here are trace minerals, all with food safety regulator authorised wording.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eZinc\u003c\/strong\u003e (5mg, 50% NRV) — contributes to the maintenance of normal vision. The retina contains the highest concentration of zinc of any soft tissue in the human body. Zinc deficiency is the single most consistent dietary finding in the eye-health literature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eManganese\u003c\/strong\u003e (2mg, 100% NRV) — contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress. A trace mineral the modern diet is often short of.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eCopper\u003c\/strong\u003e (0.5mg, 50% NRV) — contributes to the maintenance of normal connective tissues and to the protection of cells from oxidative stress. Works in concert with zinc — the two minerals are usually paired in good formulation, because too much of one without the other can disturb the balance.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSelenium\u003c\/strong\u003e (55μg, 100% NRV) — contributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress and to the normal function of the immune system. UK soils are notoriously low in selenium; British diets are often deficient as a result.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eVitamin E — the fat-soluble antioxidant\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eVitamin E\u003c\/strong\u003e (6mg α-TE, 9 IU, 50% NRV) — \u003cem\u003econtributes to the protection of cells from oxidative stress\u003c\/em\u003e. A fat-soluble vitamin that works in adjacent rooms of the same broad story as vitamin C. Found in cold-pressed plant oils, nuts, seeds, leafy greens.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eThe formula as a whole\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLay these twelve ingredients on a table — bilberry, pine bark, lutein, zeaxanthin, citrus bioflavonoids, vitamin C, zinc, manganese, copper, selenium, vitamin E — and what they share is a single quiet theme: the \u003cem\u003ecolour and protection\u003c\/em\u003e of a part of the body that depends, more than most, on tiny blood vessels and exquisitely sensitive light-sensing cells.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWe didn't pick them at random. We picked the bilberry tradition of northern Europe, the maritime pine bark tradition of Atlantic France, the marigold-derived eye pigments that the body can't make for itself, the four trace minerals that the soil isn't always supplying, and the two antioxidant vitamins that EFSA has formally agreed support cells against oxidative stress. And we laid them in the same capsule. The thinking isn't \u003cem\u003emore is more.\u003c\/em\u003e It's \u003cem\u003ecolour goes where the eye needs it most.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHow to use it\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne capsule, one to three times a day, \u003cem\u003ewith food\u003c\/em\u003e — most of these compounds are fat-soluble, and a meal helps absorption. Most people take one with breakfast or lunch and find that's plenty. The bottle holds sixty capsules — at one a day it lasts two months, at three a day three weeks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDon't stack it on top of three other multivitamins or the zinc, copper, and selenium will overlap. Plants of this kind work in the background. Most people who notice a difference notice it between week three and week eight — slightly less eye fatigue at the end of a long screen day, the sense of slightly easier focus when the light starts to fade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf after sixty days nothing has changed, stop. A supplement that isn't doing anything for you isn't worth the money, and we'd rather have your trust for the next thing than your loyalty to the wrong thing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003eHonest caveats\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a food supplement — it complements a varied diet, doesn't replace one. \u003cstrong\u003eThis product is for adults only and should be avoided during pregnancy, breastfeeding and if you take medication, unless advised by a medical practitioner.\u003c\/strong\u003e Keep it cool, dry, sealed, out of reach of children. Don't exceed three capsules a day. The bilberry, pine bark, and marigold don't grow in the British climate at scale — we source from established harvest chains in their native regions, and the formula is blended and encapsulated to UK GMP standards.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf you've read this far, thank you. We tried to write the kind of page we'd want to read before spending money — no neon promises, no overblown language. Just a small dark moorland berry, eleven quiet companions, and a small daily ritual that may help your eyes feel a little less tired at the end of a long screen day.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e— \u003cem\u003eVitadefence\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Vitadefence®","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57112212734332,"sku":"sku-51714824503562","price":14.49,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0952\/9317\/8236\/files\/EyeNourishv2_E8142_3pp-1panel_FP200ML_front.png?v=1782463505","url":"https:\/\/leanandhealthy.myshopify.com\/products\/bilberry-multi-60-capsules","provider":"Lean \u0026 Healthy","version":"1.0","type":"link"}