In today’s fast-paced, screen-saturated, and stress-filled world, visual health is under greater threat than ever before.  Conditions such as dry eye disease, age-related macular degeneration, cataracts, and glaucoma are on the rise, due not only to aging but also to modern lifestyle factors, including nutrient-poor diets, digital overexposure, toxin accumulations, and chronic stress.

In this dynamic interdisciplinary webinar, renowned integrative optometrist Dr, Marc Grossman, OD, L.Ac., and trailblazing integrative neuro-ophthalmologist Dr. Rani Banik, MD, team up to explain how integrative strategies, including ocular nutrition, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and eye-body-mindset exercises, can optimize eye health, prevent vision loss, and promote lifelong clarity of sight.

Addressing both the root causes and early signs of ocular dysfunction, the session will blend evidence-based Western medicine, functional and lifestyle medicine, ocular nutrition, and Eastern healing systems, to offer a truly integrative road map to healthy vision. 

This presentation takes selected topics from a comprehensive “Seeing Forever” course that Drs. Grossman and Banik propose to offer in a conference setting next year.  So attendees will actually be privileged to get something of a “sneak-preview” sampling of the complete syllabus intended for 2026.

Among the highlights extracted for the webinar from this larger course outline:

• A detailed discussion of nutrition for the eyes, including functional medicine insights into mitochondrial energy, antioxidants, and anti-inflammatory nutrients, alongside TCM’s perspective on the roles of the Liver and Heart meridians in eye health.
• Simple but powerful exercises and mindset practices, including acupressure, palming, near-far focus, eye yoga, and box breathing, to reduce stress and enhance visual resilience through a shift from sympathetic overdrive to parasympathetic restoration.

By weaving together ancient wisdom and modern science, and some of the theoretical foundations and evidentiary underpinnings of integrative vision care with readily available exercise techniques, this presentation will provide a framework for even non-specialist clinicians to understand the field and to help their patients counter daily visual stressors and optimize long-term eye health.

Speaker Bios:

Marc Grossman, OD, L.Ac., is a holistic optometrist, acupuncturist, and vision wellness pioneer with more than 45 years of experience integrating Eastern and Western healing traditions. The founder of Natural Eye Care, he specializes in holistic vision therapy, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and emotional-spiritual approaches to vision restoration. A graduate of SUNY College of Optometry and the Tri-State College of Acupuncture, Dr. Grossman is on the faculty of Pacific College of Health and Science in New York, where he teaches a class in Vision and Chinese Medicine. He is the co-author of five books, including Natural Eye Care:  A Comprehensive Manual for Practitioners of Oriental Medicine, and lectures internationally on natural vision care.

Rudrani (Rani) Banik, MD, is a board-certified ophthalmologist and fellowship-trained neuro-ophthalmologist with additional training in Functional Medicine.

She completed her B.A./M.D. as part of the prestigious combined eight-year Program in LiberalMedical Education at Brown University in Rhode Island. Dr. Banik then did her internship at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami, followed by an ophthalmology residency at the University of California, Irvine. She then completed a Neuro-Ophthalmology Fellowship under Dr. Neil Miller at Wilmer Eye Institute/Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

After training, Dr. Banik joined the full-time faculty at Albert Einstein College of Medicine/Montefiore Medical Center in New York, after which she became Program Director in Ophthalmology at Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center. She was then recruited to New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai to serve as faculty and run the clinical trials in Neuro-Ophthalmology. She worked there full-time until 2017, when she branched out to open her own practice in Manhattan.

She maintains an academic appointment at Mount Sinai as Associate Professor of Ophthalmology, where she actively teaches and supervises residents,,fellows, and medical students. She also serves as Principal Investigator for the clinical trials in Neuro-Ophthalmology. 

Dr. Banik has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles and been a speaker at both national and international conferences.

A fellow of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the North American Neuro-Ophthalmology Society, Dr. Banik also serves on the American Board of Ophthalmology’s Exam Development Committee–a role she enjoys and through which she helps maintain the standards of board certification in ophthalmology.

In 2021, Dr. Banik completed additional certification in integrative and functional medicine through the Institute for Functional Medicine. Using this training, she focuses on the root cause of eye and neuro-ophthalmic diseases, and uses integrative strategies for conditions such as thyroid eye disease, optic neuritis, non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy, macular degeneration, cataract, dry eye, glaucoma, migraine, and autoimmune diseases of the visual system. Her integrative treatments are based on nutrition, botanicals, lifestyle modification, essential oils, and supplements, along with traditional Western medical and surgical approaches.  Dr. Banik believes that this combination provides the best of both worlds to her patients, with a more holistic approach to their vision health.

In April 2023, Dr. Banik published her first book, Beyond Carrots – Best Foods for Eye Health A to Z.  In this volume on ocular nutrition, she highlights the 30+ nutrients needed for healthy vision–beyond beta carotene–and the 40 plant-based foods besides carrots that are richest in these nutrients.   A companion cookbook, Dr. Rani’s Plant-Based Visionary Kitchen, contains more than 130 recipes curated to support eye health. 

Dr. Banik is the host of The Eye-Q Podcast, a weekly show in which she interviews guests from various disciplines on their expertise in holistic eye health, nutrition, and overall wellness. She also is the founder of The Eye Health SummitTM  and hosted this free online educational event in May 2025. The inaugural Summit featured more than 40 expert speakers and had more than 22,000 attendees from around the world.  It received high praise as a pioneering meeting that raised global awareness of preventative and integrative eye care.

Dr Banik is also the creator of the Ageless Eyes Signature Program and has her own line of curated eye health products, Ageless Eyes by Dr Rani.

Frequently featured in the media, Dr. Banik has been interviewed on Good Morning America, The Today Show Online, CBS, NBC, ABC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, MindBodyGreen, and Fox, among many others, and has been a guest expert on over 100 podcasts.  She has been voted by her peers as Castle Connolly Top Doctor and New York Magazine’s Best Doctor in Ophthalmology every year since 2017.

Dr. Banik lives and works in New York City, which she believes is the best city in the world. She enjoys traveling the world, dancing salsa and classical Indian, cooking, and spending quality time with her family and friends.

Dr. Banik’s professional mission is to educate both her colleagues and the public about how vision health can be promoted using the power of healthy nutrition and lifestyle choices.  To this end, many resources, including a free online assessment called the Eye-Q Test, have been made available on her website:  www.drranibanik.com.  

Her postings on topics ranging from neuro-ophthalmology, to migraine, to ocular nutrition, also can be found on Instagram(@dr.ranibanik), Facebook (EnVision Health), and YouTube (@dr.ranibanik).

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Register here.

You do not need to be an optometrist or ophthalmologist to attend this webinar.

Non-members and med students interested in integrative medicine also are welcome to participate.

Cleveland Chapter contact: petergeller.lac@gmail.com