THE CLAIM: Eating carrots improves your eyesight.

THE FACTS: In the United States, we often call it just another old wives' tale. But the claim that eating carrots is good for the eyes is not exactly baseless.

Carrots are high in beta carotene, a component of vitamin A, which is critical to normal vision. It's no coincidence that in countries where rice is a dietary staple but carrots and other sources of the vitamin are scarce, poor vision is rampant.

So should you forget about glasses and just eat carrots? Probably not. Studies show that while taking vitamin A can reverse poor vision caused by a deficiency, it will not strengthen eyesight or slow decline in people who are healthy.

A study by researchers at Johns Hopkins University in 1998, for example, looked at 30,000 women in South Asia at high risk of vitamin deficiencies. It found that a group that received vitamin A tablets had 67 percent fewer cases of night blindness than a group that received a placebo.

But in 2003, researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston found that a group of thousands of healthy men who took beta carotene pills for 12 years had the same rate of age-related cataracts as those given a placebo.

THE BOTTOM LINE: Eating carrots helps maintain normal vision.