Gurm Don't worry about my diet or it's relation to eye strain. I'll make my diet decisions myself. You seem very happy that I have "admitted" the diet and eye strain connection. Yes. Now get over it. It is not your worry. Likewise to your example - sugar tastes nice, but I don't eat it because it makes me diabetic in the long run. I rather avoid it. If a low carb diet in my case avoids me getting diabetes, I rather have every now and then a bit of dry eyes.
The low carb diet has been studied extremely well during the past 10 years, as there are people who are hell bent to prove that it causes all kinds of permanent problems, but none of the studies have come to any conclusion that would infer any adverse outcomes. If that would be the case, there would be many bitter persons who have failed to do it correctly, quoting these studies all over the internet. Instead what they do, is they quote their own experience and own opinions.
These n1 anecdotes that extreme starvation caused someone permanent eye problems don't really mean much. That might be the case, but starvation and all kinds of extreme diets are such a common occurrence that it would also be common knowledge that starvation causes such permanent problems. Maybe it triggered something in your case, maybe you had a problem to begin with but maybe it's just coincidence and you connect the dots, while there might be no causality. But low carb diet is not starvation or even an extreme diet. (for a SAD dieter it might sound of course, but so does a marathon for a couch potato.)
I don't have a major problem by any means, and it gets better when I can avoid PWM displays and sleep well. Why I'm here is that I want to have information about this matter and see if someone has come up with some solutions like the firmware that disables PWM in AMOLED phones. Or the fact that One Plus 3 seems to be problem free for some. Because, most manufacturers are now pushing AMOLED screens, even to laptops now. If we can do nothing about this, then in couple of years I don't have any screen that I could use, as AMOLED with a PWM is unsuitable not matter what kind of eye drops I use or what kind of diet I eat.
Btw, coincidentally coffee DOES improve the eye strain - coffee increases mucus production and whenever my eyes are red and irritated as a result of something else than PWM, a strong cup of coffee does help with it. (I know your point was just a random example, but since you happened to mention - maybe others have found this too)
The mechanism of low carb diet is that at some point glucose might be too low, especially when the metabolism and insulin resistance starts to improve with low carb and intermittent fasting, then gluconeogenesis/insulin resistance does not maintain high blood glucose levels and as the body is always trying to preserve glucose for the brain AND mucus production requires glucose, then the mucus production is slowed down. As coffee increases mucus production (maybe due to the increase in blood glucose), this helps the dry eyes. But dry eyes are as such a completely different problem than the PWM caused irritation.
Of course, could be possible that the glands producing mucus are for some reason stopping the mucus production when they are exposed to flickering light. Sounds far fetched, but the whole problem is strange all together, so maybe that's the case. But then again - no amount of lubricant eye drops help the problem. So if PWM irritation would be just dry eyes, then it would resolve by moistening the eyes, which in my case does not happen.