Could you get 'Terminator vision' by changing your DIET? Lesser-known Vitamin A2 develops infrared sight, study claims

During World War II, the U.S. Navy wanted to boost sailors' night vision so they could spot infrared signal lights.

According to some reports, they fed volunteers supplements made from the livers of walleyed pikes, and over several months, the volunteers’ vision began seeing the infrared region.

While this legendary tale may sound far-fetched, a crowd-funded group of scientists has recreated this experiment and claims to have had successful results.

 

Infrared vision helps animals such as snakes see the heat signature of their prey, but without night goggles, humans don’t have this ability.

The latest experiment was designed by Science for the Masses, a US-based group whose vision is to explore ‘non-institutional open source science.’

 

They claim that by limiting Vitamin A1 in the diet and replacing it with A2, the human body increase its production of something called porphyropsin.

This is the protein complex that grants near infrared (NIR) vision to freshwater fish - and so, they say, can give humans completely natural infrared vision.

Vitamin A1 is commonly found in green and yellow-pigmented vegetables including bell peppers and carrots. Vitamin A2, on the other hand, is derived from fish livers.