I fear going blind, the way my grandfather and my mother did. She was diagnosed with macular degeneration, the most common cause of blindness in older Americans.

My fear is so great that I follow a preemptive strategy - eating kale, rich in zeaxanthin and lutein, almost daily. Jim Harper of Albuquerque taught me that. When macular degeneration blinded him a few years ago, the retired executive fought back, researched alternative therapies and - well, Jim drives around town these days.

I happened upon another therapy when, as I entered an OASIS Singers rehearsal. Ed Banks - he of the cool rendition of "Embraceable You" - said, from across the room, "Hi, Art." From across the room! Ed was blind. He used a white cane.

"What's the story?" I asked. A doctor, Alston C. Lundgren, in Santa Fe, he said.

Last week, I watched Lundgren use medical acupuncture to treat age-related macular degeneration. Eloise James, down from Cortez for a follow-up, lay on a table, studs in her ears and tiny needles around her eyes and in her chest, knees and feet. Her sister, Donna Palmer, volunteered that Eloise hadn't been able to read her Bible, but one day, after Lundgren's treatment, she did.

"I think we both just about cried," Palmer said.

Nice anecdote, but Lundgren prefers precision and hard data.

"Nobody knows what causes macular degeneration, so its pretty hard to say you're curing it. What I'm doing is improving the vision loss. We can measure visual acuity on an eye chart. Realistically, what I'm interested in and what consumers are interested in is function."

What his patients value most - no surprise - is the ability to drive and to read.

Lundgren says 85 percent of his patients show some improvement. He's not certain why.

"I know that certain things I'm doing increase blood supply," he says, but there's not enough science yet on other possible effects, like strengthening muscles.

Having treated AMD, wet and dry, for almost five years, he's learned. Originally, he figured patients would need regular tune-ups. Not so. He's found, too, that improvements seem "to be pretty durable." His refined technique, called the Santa Fe Protocol, is detailed at www.reverseamd.com.

Lundgren is a family physician. Years into his practice he attended a UCLA program in medical acupuncture to find a new treatment option.

"But it seduced me," he says, and he used the new approach often. Then came a Vancouver workshop where Joseph Wong of Toronto, a pioneering physician in neuro-anatomic acupuncture, mentioned that he'd improved the vision of people suffering from macular degeneration.

"My ears perked up, and I just took it upon myself to improve on that," Lundgren said.

Despite documentation and articles in the journal Medical Acupuncture, Lundgren is not quite mainstream.

"Conventional ophthalmologists by and large do not recommend me," he said.

Of necessity, uncomfortably, he advertises.

"I make things more ethical," he told me, "by saying that if I treat you several times and you do not get better, there's no charge."

Speeding home from the City Different, I pondered James and her Bible and Ed Banks reveling in his improved vision. And I thought, for now I'll keep gobbling the nation's kale crop. But, boy, I'm pleased to know that Lundgren is only 50 minutes away.

Alpert, a semi-retired newsman in Albuquerque, may be reached at ArthurAlpert@swcp.com.