A Spoonful of Vegetable Oil Helps You See Better Longer?

Posted on November 9, 2013 by Dawn Kaplan

Can vegetable oil help combat blindness? Turns out it can!

The Research Center on Aging at the Health and Social Services Centre — University Institute of Geriatrics of Sherbrooke (CSSS-IUGS), England is the home of scientists who have been studying strategies for protecting retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells. There is a dysfunction of the RPE cells that is found in retinopathy and age-related macular degeneration, both of which are the leading causes of blindness in elderly people in developed countries.

Findings published in the Canadian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology suggest that incubating retinal cells with vegetable oils induces biochemical and biophysical changes in the cell membrane, which may have a beneficial effect in preventing or slowing the development of retinopathy.

The research was centered around the fluidity of the membrane in the eye. The better the fluid in and around the membrane the smoother the eye operates. When there is not enough membrane fluidity the rotation and diffusion of proteins are affected. However, an increase in the membrane fluidity enables the membrane to be more flexible and eases the transmission of light through the eye.

The researchers discovered that the fatty acids present in vegetable oil integrate in retina cells and increase the plasma membrane fluidity.

So what does all this mean? The researchers concluded that a diet low in trans-unsaturated fats and rich in omega-3 fatty acids and olive oil may reduce the risk of retinopathy. Additionally, the research suggests that replacing the neutral oil found in eye drops with oil that possesses valuable biological properties for the eye could also contribute to the prevention of retina diseases.

This adds to the already established research that what you eat has a direct impact on your health and wellness.

To read the original article, visit: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130815113644.htm

Can Your Eyes Be a Window to Your Stroke Risk?

Posted on October 18, 2013 by Dawn Kaplan

Your eyes may be a window to your soul, but could they also be a window to your stroke risk?

In a recent study detailed in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension, researchers state that retinal imaging may someday help assess if a person is more likely to develop a stroke. This could be an invaluable diagnostic discovery – strokes Eyes and Strokes are the nation’s No. 4 killer and a leading cause of disability.

“The retina provides information on the status of blood vessels in the brain,” said Mohammad Kamran Ikram, M.D., Ph.D., lead author of the study and assistant professor in the Singapore Eye Research Institute, the Department of Ophthalmology and Memory Aging & Cognition Centre, at the National University of Singapore. “Retinal imaging is a non-invasive and cheap way of examining the blood vessels of the retina.”

Globally, high blood pressure is the single most important risk factor for stroke. However, until now there has not been a reliable way to predict which high blood pressure patients are more likely to develop a stroke.

THE STUDY:

Researchers tracked stroke occurrence for an average 13 years in 2,907 patients with high blood pressure who had not previously experienced a stroke. At the baseline, each patient had photographs taken of the retina, the light-sensitive layer of cells at the back of the eyeball. Damage to the retinal blood vessels attributed to hypertension — called hypertensive retinopathy — evident on the patient photographs was scored as one of four ways: none, mild, moderate, or severe.

THE FINDINGS:

During the follow-up, 161 participants experienced a stroke: 146 caused by a blood clot and 15 by bleeding in the brain.

After adjusting for several stroke risk factors such as age, sex, race, cholesterol levels, blood sugar, body mass index, smoking and blood pressure readings, researchers found the risk of stroke was 35 percent higher in those with mild hypertensive retinopathy and 137 percent higher in those with moderate or severe hypertensive retinopathy. The researchers determined that even in patients whose blood pressure was successfully controlled by medication, the risk of a blood clot was 96 percent higher in those with mild hypertensive retinopathy and 198 percent higher in those with moderate or severe hypertensive retinopathy.

While this research opens the door for early risk detection in patients with hypertension, Ikram states “It is too early to recommend changes in clinical practice, other studies need to confirm our findings and examine whether retinal imaging can be useful in providing additional information about stroke risk in people with high blood pressure.”

More research is being done on the benefits of retinal imaging. But one thing is for sure: retinal imaging would be an inexpensive and non-invasive way to assess risk.

To read the original article, visit: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/08/130812170207.htm

Does Low Birth Weight = Age-related Vision Loss?

Posted on July 29, 2013 by Dawn Kaplan

A recent study suggests doctors may need to pay close attention to vision concerns in patients born with a low birth weight.

Medical researchers at the University of Alberta recently published findings of their study on rats with restricted growth in the womb, causing them to be born with low birth weights. The study showed those rats were most susceptible to developing age-related vision loss, compared with rats born within the normal range of birth weight.

Additional work needs to be done to see whether this same link exists in people. If it does, doctors will need to incorporate better vision monitoring in adults who were born with a low birth weight.

Although most age-related eye diseases or vision loss can result from many different factors, this study may indicate that low birth weight could be an additional factor to consider.

The low birth weight rats in the study had overall poorer vision as they aged, they also had poorer night vision. While it is normal for night vision to be slightly affected with age, the night vision loss was worse than normal in the test subjects as they aged.

Now all of this begs the question: How do they know what a rat can or cannot see and the degree of the difference??

Tetris – A Cure for Lazy Eye Disorder?

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Dawn Kaplan

Researchers use the popular puzzle video game Tetris to treat adult amblyopia or lazy-eye.

By distributing information between the two eyes equally, the video game trains the eyes to work together, which is the opposite of previous treatments for the disorder (e.g. patching).

This study provides direct evidence that forcing both eyes to cooperate, increases the level of plasticity in the brain and allows the amblyopic brain to relearn. The research is published in the prestigious journal Current Biology.

Amblyopia or lazy-eye is the most common cause of visual impairment in childhood, affecting up to 3 out of every 100 children. Caused by poor processing in the brain, the weaker eye is suppressed by the stronger eye. Previously treatments for the disorder have focused largely on covering the stronger eye in order to force the weaker eye to work harder, proved only partially successful in children and have been ineffective in adults.

For adults a study was created that set up conditions that would enable the two eyes to cooperate for the first time in a given task.

The adult human brain has a significant degree of plasticity which provides the basis for treating a range of conditions where vision has been lost as a result of a disrupted period of early visual development in childhood. Researchers examined the potential of treating amblyopic adults using the video game Tetris, which involves connecting different shaped blocks as they fall to the ground.

By using head-mounted video goggles the game was displayed dichoptically, where one eye was allowed to see only the falling objects, and the other eye was allowed to see only the ground plane, resulting in the eyes being forced to work together.

The study used 18 adults with amblyopia. Nine participants played the game monocularly with the weaker eye, while the stronger eye was patched; the other nine played the same game dichoptically, where each eye was allowed to view a separate part of the game. After two weeks, the group playing the dichoptic game showed a dramatic improvement in the vision of the weaker eye as well as in 3-D depth perception. When the monocular patching group, who had showed only a moderate improvement, was switched to the new dichoptic training, the vision of this group also improved dramatically.

The suitability of this treatment in children will be assessed later this year in a clinical trial across North America.

Learn more about this study and read the original article: https://www.healthcanal.com/eyes-vision/37920-lazy-eye-disorder-a-promising-therapeutic-approach.html