Looking for clues about your brain health? You should want to visit your eye doctor. Research increasingly links common eye conditions — glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration, and diabetic retinopathy — to the chance of Alzheimer's and other types of dementia.
“My view, and one of the possible explanations offered by the authors, is that these three eye diseases and Alzheimer's and dementia are linked”—that's, a typical causative factor. “All are related to cardiovascular disease,” says Dr. Hoffman.
How are eye conditions linked to heart disease?
- Glaucoma A condition marked by increased pressure in the attention that may result in vision loss. It is related to hypertension, diabetes and poor blood circulation.
- Age-related macular degeneration This includes damage to the macula, the a part of the retina answerable for sharp central vision. It has also been linked to heart disease.
- Diabetic retinopathy It occurs in individuals with diabetes when high blood sugar damages the blood vessels within the retina. There are strong links between diabetes and heart problems.
Cataracts — clouding of the attention's lens — usually tend to develop as people age. However, they don't appear to extend the chance of heart disease, Alzheimer's disease, or other types of dementia.
A have a look at Alzheimer's
Beginning in 1994, the Mindfulness Study of Changes in Adults involved 5,400 dementia-free adults. Participants were followed until they decided to go away the study, died, or developed dementia. Research published in Alzheimer's and Dementia In 2019 Data derived from adult changes in pondering studies were analyzed. This time, the researchers focused on 3,800 of those participants, each with and without eye disease in the beginning of the study. Some 792 of them developed dementia.
The study authors found that individuals with age-related macular degeneration were 20 percent more prone to develop dementia than those that didn't have the attention disease. People with diabetic retinopathy were 44 percent more prone to develop dementia than those without. People within the study who had a recent diagnosis of glaucoma — but those that didn't have the disease — had a 44 percent higher rate of dementia. It just isn't clear why there was a difference between individuals with recent or existing disease.
Can eye exams be used to predict – and higher yet, prevent – Alzheimer's?
While these findings show a link between three eye diseases and brain risks, a very important query stays: What does this information mean for you? Can an eye fixed exam let you know in the event you are destined to develop dementia in the long run? More importantly, can it assist you to avoid it?
Someday the reply to those questions could also be yes. For now, nonetheless, eye exams are precious for early detection of eye disease so it will possibly be treated—but they don't yet provide much predictive details about your brain's future health. You can, says Dr. Hoffman.
But relating to stopping Alzheimer's disease, we will take lessons from this study. Today, the one option to prevent Alzheimer's and other types of dementia is to stop heart problems.
“Doing all the things you would do to prevent heart attack and stroke are potentially beneficial for preventing Alzheimer's disease,” says Dr. Hoffman. This means treating hypertension and cholesterol, eating a healthy weight loss program, getting enough sleep, and maintaining a daily exercise program.
If you have got a family history of heart disease or a history of heart-related eye diseases, you could need to be much more aggressive about controlling your personal risk aspects, says Dr. Hoffman. are