General Vision and Eye News

Bifocals for Children? They May Slow Myopia Progression

HONG KONG, March 2010 — Children with myopia (nearsightedness) at high progression rates may benefit from bifocals, according to a new study.

Researchers from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University examined about 130 Chinese Canadian children with an average age of 10 years. They were divided into three groups of different eyeglass lenses: regular lenses, bifocal lenses= and prismatic bifocals (which help the eyes work together).

After 24 months, they found that myopia progression was the most rapid among the group that wore regular, single-focus lenses. Progression was slower among the children who wore bifocals and slowest among those who wore prismatic bifocals.

The researchers concluded that bifocal treatment could benefit children with myopia, but long-term studies are needed.

The study appeared in the January issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

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Link Between Untreated Poor Vision and Dementia

ANN ARBOR, Mich., March 2010 — Can poor vision left untreated lead to cognitive decline and dementia? New research suggests it may be a contributing factor.

Researchers at the University of Michigan studied 625 elderly patients from the Health and Retirement Study and Medicare files over an eight-and-a-half-year period. All participants had normal cognitive function at the start of the study.

Participants with poor vision who did not receive proper eye care had a 9.5-fold increased risk of Alzheimer's disease (the most common form of dementia) and 5-fold increased risk for cognitive impairment.

The participants with very good vision at the beginning of the study had a 63 percent reduced risk of dementia.

Of the participants over 90 years old, 78 percent of those who had normal cognition had had one or more eye procedures previously, compared with only 52 percent of those who had Alzheimer's disease.

The researchers concluded that untreated poor vision is associated with cognitive decline and the development of dementia. The study report appeared in the American Journal of Epidemiology, published online in February.

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Keratoconus Almost Retired Olympic Bobsledder, But a New Procedure Saved His Sight

VANCOUVER, B.C., Canada, February 2010 — Steve Holcomb says he is seeing 20/20 now, after an eye procedure helped him overcome the keratoconus that was ruining his vision.

Holcomb was seeing 20/500 before, which meant he faced retirement from his role as the U.S. Olympic Team's four-man bobsled pilot.

In March 2008, Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, an ophthalmologist and refractive surgeon who practices in Los Angeles, embedded implantable contact lenses in Holcomb's eyes to improve his vision.

Then he performed his 30-minute C3-R procedure, in which he applied riboflavin eye drops to the cornea and activated them with a special light. The procedure is also called collagen cross-linking or corneal cross-linking, and it is used to strengthen the corneal tissue.

(Dr. Boxer Wachler is also a member of All About Vision's Editorial Advisory Board.)

Keratoconus is a progressive eye disease that causes the cornea to bulge outward. The cornea becomes thinner, and vision is blurred. Holcomb's case had become so severe that glasses and contacts could not correct his vision adequately to allow him to compete in bobsledding.

For more information about Holcomb's condition and the surgery that saved his sight, please watch the NBC Nightly News video here, served by YouTube.

And in case you're wondering, Holcomb and his U.S. team did win the Olympic gold medal in the four-man bobsled competition on Feb. 26-27.

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Surgeons Developing Artificial Muscles To Restore Blinking

SACRAMENTO, Calif., February 2010 — With implantation of artificial muscles, people with facial paralysis can regain their ability to blink, according to surgeons at UC Davis Medical Center.

Thousands of people can't close their eyelids because of injury, stroke or facial surgery, which is a problem because blinking is necessary to wipe clean and maintain lubrication of the eyes.

The surgeons are developing a procedure that would implant an electroactive polymer artificial muscle (EPAM) to create an eyelid blink and improve facial appearance. The muscle would be powered with an implanted battery.

Current methods of reactivating a blink include transferring a leg muscle to the face and suturing a gold weight inside the eyelid. But both have significant drawbacks.

The researchers believe that EPAMs will be available within the next five years, according to a UC Davis Medical Center press release.

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Solar-Powered Retinal Implant in Development

PALO ALTO, Calif., February 2010 — Stanford University scientists are developing an artificial retina implant that uses photovoltaic power (or solar power) as its power source.

Such an implant may have advantages over other implants that are powered in other ways. The implant would be placed in the back of the eye of people who have lost vision to retinitis pigmentosa and other eye diseases.

While the implant cannot restore normal vision, the researchers hope it could increase visual acuity to 20/100, according to a report in The Stanford Daily.

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Could Egyptian Eye Makeup Have Actually Been
Medicine for Eye Disease?

PARIS, February 2010 — Some ancient Egyptians believed that the black eye makeup that Queen Nefertiti and other royal family members wore was magically protective against certain illnesses.

Since the makeup was lead-based and therefore toxic, most modern scientists have denied that possibility.

But scientists in France analyzed 52 samples from ancient Egyptian makeup containers kept in the Louvre museum and identified four lead-based substances that increase nitric oxide production by up to 240 percent in cultured human skin cells.

Among other things, nitric oxide increases the immune system's ability to fight diseases such as the bacterial eye infections suffered by people living in the tropical marshy area of the Nile River. These infections probably occurred when the eyes came into contact with contaminated water.

The researchers also noted that two of the compounds don't occur naturally and must have been created by Egyptian chemists, perhaps to help prevent or treat eye disease, though this speculation is unproven.

The findings appeared in the Jan. 15 issue of Analytical Chemistry.

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Ethnic Background May Affect Vision Disorder Rates in Young Children

LOS ANGELES, February 2010 — The Multi-Ethnic Pediatric Eye Disease Study (MEPEDS) assessed the prevalence of nearsightedness, farsightedness and anisometropia in more than 6,000 Hispanic and African-American children, to see if differences existed in the rates of vision disorders between the two groups.

The children were 6 months to 6 years old. About 90 percent were in the "normal" range of nearsightedness and farsightedness. African-American children were more likely than Hispanic children to be myopic (6.6 percent vs. 3.7 percent), but rates declined with age, which the results suggested was normal. But other studies have shown that both groups show an increase in myopia when they become schoolchildren.

Hyperopia was more common in the Hispanic children (26.9 percent vs. 20.8 percent). It stabilized or increased between 6 and 24 months, and the 2- to 3-year-old time period is when eye misalignment (esotropia) is likely to occur. The researchers believe that persistent hyperopia and esotropia could be related.

A difference in refractive error between the eyes (anisometropia) occurred in 4 to 6 percent of preschoolers in both groups. Anisometropia can lead to strabismus or amblyopia (lazy eye).

A report on the MEPEDS research appeared in the January issue of Ophthalmology.

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Our Desires May Affect Our Visual Perceptions

ITHACA, N.Y., February 2010 — If we really want something, we see it as physically closer to us than something we don't want, concludes a set of studies conducted by scientists at Cornell University.

In one experiment, participants estimated how far a water bottle was from where they were sitting. Half were very thirsty, and they estimated that the water was closer to them than the other half did.

In another experiment, participants tossed a beanbag toward a gift card on the floor; they won the card if the beanbag landed on it. If the gift card was worth $0, the participants threw the beanbag much farther than if the gift card was worth $25. The researchers said they underthrew the beanbag for the valuable gift card because they perceived the card as closer to them.

The studies were reported in the January issue of Psychological Science.

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Nearsightedness Becoming More Common

BETHESDA, Md., January 2010 — The prevalence of myopia among Americans has increased significantly during the last 30 years, according to the National Eye Institute.

Researchers examined results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey of people ages 12 to 54. The myopia incidence rate increased 25 percent from 1971 to 1972 and 41.6 percent from 1999 to 2004.

In both time frames, the prevalence was higher in white individuals than blacks. Myopia cases among black individuals increased by 13 percent from 1971 to 1972 and 33.5 percent from 1999 to 2004. Among whites, myopia prevalence increased by 26.3 percent from 1971 to 1972 and 43 percent from 1999 to 2004.

According to the report in the December issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, the high prevalence costs Americans billions of dollars each year in vision correction. The authors stated that identifying myopia risk factors could lead to more cost-effective strategies.

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Man Treated for Spider Hairs in His Eye

LEEDS, England, January 2010 — A British man went to the hospital for an irritated eye that turned out to be caused by his pet tarantula. The incident was reported in The Lancet by colleagues at St. James's University Hospital in Leeds, England.

For three weeks prior to going to the hospital, his eye was red, watery and light-sensitive. When conjunctivitis treatment did not clear his symptoms, doctors examined his cornea with high-magnification lenses. To their surprise, there were hair-like projections in his cornea.

After finding the hairs, the patient recalled that his pet Chilean Rose tarantula had released a "mist of hairs" in his eyes and face when he was cleaning the tank weeks before. Upon diagnosis, the doctors treated the eye with topical steroids because the hairs were too small to be removed.

The doctors explained in the article that Chilean Rose tarantulas dislodge hairs into the air as a defense mechanism. Although incidents are rare, doctors recommended that tarantula owners wear protective eyewear when handling their pets. In addition, they emphasized the importance of doctor and patient collaboration, which was key to the man's diagnosis.

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Man Has Eyeglasses Tattooed on His Face

LOS ANGELES, January 2010 — The Internet is exclaiming over a Los Angeles man who decided to get a permanent eyeglass tattoo.

The man, who posted pictures of the process on Flickr under the account name MatthewG15, chose a chunky '70s style frame shape, tattooed in black.

A tattoo afficionado who already has significant amounts of ink on much of his body, "Matthew" reportedly agreed to the eyeglass tattoo to participate in Ray-Ban's "Never Hide" viral marketing campaign.

But did his girlfriend approve? Apparently yes, juding from her smiles in the photos.

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iPhone Apps for the Eyes

CUPERTINO, Calif., December 2009 — It seems like there's an iPhone app for everything, and now we're hearing about a few for the eyes, available online in the iTunes App Store.

We haven't tried these, so no guarantees here (read other users' reviews before you download!). But you might want to check them out:

• You can use your iPhone 3GS as a magnifying glass with the Eye Glasses app, which autofocuses on the reading material and magnifies it from 2X to 8X. Sounds helpful for reading the menu in those dimly lit restaurants!
• Colorblind Helper is a color identifier. You take a photo with your iPhone's camera and touch various parts of the scene to see their colors described in English. Color deficient users report that this is especially helpful when deciding what to wear. Other apps for color blindness work similarly, such as ColorHelper, so compare before you download.
   
  Visolve is a little different: it's an iPhone app version of existing PC software that will make certain colors brighter or darker, depending on your criteria. For instance, if you have trouble distinguishing between red and green, Visolve can make the redder colors brighter. Or it can darken all colors except the color you specify.
• When you're on the go you can test your visual field for distortion with MaculaTester, a kind of Amsler grid for the iPhone or iPod Touch that may provide early warning signs of macular dysfunction. (Caution: Do not rely on this test to diagnose macular degeneration or any other eye disease. You need to visit an eye doctor for that.) A portion of the proceeds from this $2.99 app goes to various macular degeneration foundations.

If you know of other iPhone or iPod Touch apps that are related to eyes or vision, will you please contact our editor? We'd also love to hear about your experiences while using them.

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Tips for Choosing Safe Toys This Holiday Season

SAN FRANCISCO, December 2009 — For a safer holiday season for both children and adults, the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) has released these eye safety tips:

• Don't buy toys with sharp, protruding or projectile parts. Particularly dangerous are BB guns, darts, pellet guns and paintball guns.
• Supervise children when they play with potentially hazardous toys or games.
• When you give sports equipment as a gift, provide appropriate protective eyewear with polycarbonate lenses. Your eye doctor is the best source for information on the right eyewear for various sports. (In the AAO's most recent Eye Injury Snapshot, a nationwide report by eye doctors of the eye injuries they saw in one day, more than 78 percent of people were not wearing eyewear at the time of injury.)
• Choose games and sports gear that are appropriate for your child's age and maturity level; check the age recommendations on the packaging.
• Keep toys for older kids away from younger kids.
• When untying your tree, be careful and wear safety glasses. The branches can easily burst forward and injure your eyes.
• Hang glass ornaments out of reach of children.

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Americans Uninformed About Age-Related Vision Problems

ST. LOUIS, December 2009 — How much do you know about glaucoma, macular degeneration, cataracts and other age-related eye diseases?

Unfortunately, most Americans would have to answer, "Not very much," according to this year's American Eye-Q survey conducted by the American Optometric Association (AOA). For instance, less than a quarter of Americans understand the effects of glaucoma, and 89 percent believe it is preventable (though actually it can be treated only if detected early). And only 18 percent know that macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness if you're 65 or older.

These topics are not generally taught in school, so it's not surprising that many people would know little about them. Still, most people feel that vision is the most valuable of the senses, so taking care of it would seem to be a high priority.

The AOA survey found that 92 percent of respondents understood that regular visits to their eye doctor could help reduce their risk for age-related vision problems. But only 40 percent knew that not smoking and 30 percent knew that eating a low-fat, low-salt diet would also reduce their risk.

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Diminished Visual Field Can Make Driving Dangerous;
Scientists Think Special Glasses May Help

BOSTON, December 2009 — People with hemianopia (blindness in half of the visual field in both eyes) have a lot more trouble detecting pedestrians than do people with normal vision, according to a small study conducted by scientists at Schepens Eye Research Institute.

The study included 12 people with hemianopia and 12 people with normal eyesight. Using a driving simulator, all drove for about two hours on both city roads and rural highways. The participants pressed a button whenever they saw pedestrians, who appeared at random along the side of the road and at intersections. The researchers measured both detection rates and response times.

The people with hemianopia detected on average about 45 percent of the pedestrians, and when detection occurred on the blind side, response times were about twice as long as those of the drivers with normal sight. The blind-side detection rate varied widely among the hemianopes: from 6 percent to 100 percent, with the lower rates among the older participants.

In at least 22 states and several countries, people with hemianopia are not allowed to drive. The scientists said they plan to test the ability of special glasses to improve the detection rate for pedestrians on the blind side.

Study results appeared in the November issue of Investigative Ophthalmology and Visual Science.

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Survey Says Americans Are Reducing Doctor Visits
Because of the Recession

ST. LOUIS, November 2009 — Thirty-six percent of Americans said they are visiting their doctors less because of the recession, in a survey released by the American Optometric Association (AOA). When asked which doctors they are visiting less, 52 percent indicated their eye doctor.

The situation was worse for primary care physician visits (59 percent) and dentists (63 percent).

"These statistics are very worrisome," said Dr. David Cockrell, optometrist and AOA trustee, in a press release. "We know that many eye and vision problems have no obvious signs or symptoms, so early diagnosis and treatment are critical. This is true beyond just eye care. Health issues of any kind are not things that Americans should ignore."

One possible reason that eye doctor visits are down less than those in other health areas is the fear of losing eyesight, which in another study was feared most by 43 percent of respondents, vs. memory loss (32 percent) and the ability to walk (12 percent).

Respondents' ethnicity played a role in their answers: 49 percent of Hispanics, 36 percent of African-Americans and 33 percent of Caucasians are limiting doctor visits. Also, more women than men and more rural than urban people are doing so.

"The longer patients go between doctor visits, the greater the opportunity for additional health problems that ultimately can be much more expensive than routine checkups and early-stage treatment," noted Dr. Cockrell. "That is another reason that identifying health problems in the early stages is ideal."

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New Findings Help Eye Doctors Tell the Difference
Between Alzheimer's and a Visual Problem

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, November 2009 — Some Alzheimer's patients experience the disease first as problems with their vision, not with memory or other brain functions. This is called a visual variant of Alzheimer's disease, or VVAD.

The problem is, standard eye exams may not help with the diagnosis. A study of 10 patients with unexplained vision loss who were finally diagnosed with VVAD revealed some clues that eye doctors may use to diagnose VVAD and refer the patients for further tests and care. The benefit is that early diagnosis and treatment for Alzheimer's generally produces better outcomes.

When VVAD patients report their visual problems, often they are younger than Alzheimer's patients who first display memory loss. Only three of the 10 patients in this study reported loss of memory, and the median age was 65. Still, all but one had difficulty with reading, eight with writing and six with basic math. All had trouble identifying colored numbers, and eight had difficulty recognizing and interpreting parts of a complex image, an early indicator of Alzheimer's-related brain damage.

The researchers, from Jules Gonin Eye Hospital in Switzerland, said that eye doctors should suspect VVAD when someone has good visual acuity but has unusual or severe vision complaints. In this case, the person should be referred for a neurological exam.

The study results were presented at this year's joint meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the Pan-American Association of Ophthalmology.

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Scientists Find Alzheimer's-Related Lesions in the Eyes

IRVINE, Calif., November 2009 — Scientists examining mice that were genetically altered to have Alzheimer's found amyloid plaque lesions in their retinas. Such lesions occur in the brain of Alzheimer's patients and may be a good indicator of the onset of the disease.

The study results could lead to retinal imaging technology that would help diagnose and treat Alzheimer's patients less invasively, less expensively and more easily than brain imaging.

"Brain tissue isn't transparent, but retinas are," said Zhiqun Tan, a University of California - Irvine neuroscientist leading the research, in a press release. "I hope in the future we'll be able to diagnose the disease and track its progress by looking into the eyes."

The study report appeared in the November issue of the American Journal of Pathology.

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Peripheral Vision Important in Identifying Surroundings

MANHATTAN, Kan., November 2009 — When you look at a scene, is central vision or peripheral vision more helpful to you in describing it?

A study found that central vision lets us determine the details of the scene, but peripheral vision is more important in letting us know what kind of scene we're viewing (a mountain vs. a street, for example).

The Kansas State University researchers said they were surprised to discover such an important role for peripheral vision in getting the gist of a scene. They added that this knowledge could help us better understand eyewitness testimony in court cases, assist people in designing advertising campaigns and even build better robotic eyes that would help a robot of the future identify what it sees.

The study report appeared in the September issue of Journal of Vision.

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Retina Cells Grown from Stem Cells

MADISON, Wis., October 2009 — Recently scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health grew retina cells from stem cells, which may mean that eye surgeons will be able to repair damaged retinas with cells grown from the patient's own skin.

"This is an important step forward for us, as it not only confirms that multiple retinal cells can be derived from human iPS cells (a type of stem cell) using the Wisconsin approach, but also shows how similar the process is to normal human retinal development," said David Gamm, MD, PhD, in a release.

"That is quite remarkable given that the starting cell is so different from a retinal cell and the whole process takes place in a plastic dish," he added. "We continue to be amazed at how deep we can probe into these early events and find that they mimic those found in developing retinas. Perhaps this is the way to close the gap between what we know about building a retina in mice, frogs and flies with that of humans."

Growing retina cells may be useful in finding treatments for eye diseases, too. For example, skin from a patient with retinitis pigmentosa could be reprogrammed into iPS cells, then retina cells, which would allow researchers to screen large numbers of potential drugs for the condition.

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Can Color Blindness Be Cured With Gene Therapy?

GAINESVILLE, Fla., October 2009 — Apparently so, judging from the experience of two squirrel monkeys named Dalton and Sam.

Scientists added red sensitivity to cone cells in the animals' eyes, helping them to gain the ability to distinguish between red and green. This inability is the most common form of color blindness in people.

Researchers at the University of Washington had trained the monkeys previously to communicate which colors they were seeing, via a vision testing technique called the Cambridge Colour Test.

University of Florida researchers developed a gene-transfer technique to use an adeno-associated virus to deliver particular genes into the retina to produce a protein called long-wavelength opsin. This protein makes pigments that are sensitive to red and green.

In about five weeks, the monkeys began to detect colors that they had not seen before. After a year and a half of testing, the scientists found that the monkeys were detecting 16 different hues.

More research is needed, but for those who have achromatopsia, a hereditary blindness condition that causes almost complete color blindness and poor central vision, this type of gene therapy may be the answer. Others, with vision-damaging diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, may have some vision restored if the retina's cone cells are treated in this way.

A report about this study appeared in September in the online edition of Nature.

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Prevent Blindness America Tackles Lack of Children's Eye Care

CHICAGO, October 2009 — Prevent Blindness America (PBA) has received a grant from the Maternal and Child Health Bureau, a government agency, to promote eye care for young children.

PBA plans to establish the National Universal Vision Screening for Young Children Coordinating Center. The Center will help develop statewide vision screening and eye health programs for all children before they enter school. It will also help states coordinate their existing vision screening programs, as well as create a standardized performance measure for the screenings.

Prevent Blindness America will also build a National Expert Panel on Young Children's Vision Screening, including experts from the fields of ophthalmology, optometry, pediatrics and public health.

PBA hopes to improve the current situation, in which more than 12.1 million school-age American children have some type of vision problem, yet only one in three children has received eye care before the age of 6. Significant vision problems that are common among children include lazy eye, crossed eyes and high amounts of nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism.

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Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics May Cause Double Vision

PORTLAND, Ore., September 2009 — Investigators at Casey Eye Institute have been checking into reports of double vision associated with systemic fluoroquinolones, a class of antibiotics used for bronchitis, pneumonia, sinusitis and certain skin infections.

They found 171 cases between 1986 and 2009; in 53 patients medication was discontinued, and the double vision ended.

Tendon dysfunction is one of the side effects of fluoroquinolones, and one possibility is that tendinitis in muscles around the eyes may cause double vision.

A report in the September issue of Ophthalmology noted that one of the researchers, Frederick W. Fraunfelder, MD, said that doctors should take special care when prescribing fluoroquinolones to people who are over 60, have had renal failure or are taking steroids.

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Eye Disease Treatment May Be Lowering Death Rate
in Ethiopian Children

SAN FRANCISCO, September 2009 —The antibiotic azithromycin, used to control the infectious eye disease trachoma, may be lowering the death rate among children in Ethiopia.

Comparing the mortality rate of children who were treated with the antibiotic with that of untreated children, researchers found a 49 percent lower odds of death among the treated children.

The scientists said that infectious diseases are the leading cause of death in Ethiopian children, and azithromycin seems effective against bacteria that cause lower respiratory infections, diarrhea and malaria. However, they added, over-prescribing antibiotics leads to higher death rates from drug-resistant organisms, so further studies may be needed before determining public health policies in rural Ethiopia.

The study report appeared in Journal of the American Medical Association in September.

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Charity Provides Safety Eyewear To Reduce Eye Injuries
in Developing Nations

INDIANAPOLIS, September 2009 —Working Vision is the name of a nonprofit organization that aims to reduce work-related eye injuries in developing nations.

The charity is asking for donations of new and lightly used safety eyewear to distribute to workers in countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam, South Africa and Kenya. Cash donations are welcome, too, and in fact just $5 is enough to buy and ship a pair of safety eyewear to a worker abroad.

Medical student Grant Moore founded Working Vision in 2007. While serving as a research intern in Nepal in 2008, he was surprised by the large number of patients he saw who had work-related eye injuries. Most developing countries don't have government-mandated occupational safety standards, and poverty-stricken workers are unlikely or unable to buy safety eyewear on their own.

Recently the Cornea Research Foundation of America announced its fiscal sponsorship of Working Vision. For information or to donate, please contact Grant Moore at workingvision@gmail.com.

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Gene Therapy in Development for Retinitis Pigmentosa

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, August 2009 — The hereditary disease retinitis pigmentosa causes severe vision loss. But recently, scientists from the United States and Saudi Arabia have used gene therapy to restore lost vision in animal models of the disease.

During their investigations, researchers sent to the back of the eye the receptor protein MERTK, expressed in the pigmented cell layer just outside the retina that interacts with photoreceptors in maintaining visual function.

People who have lost MERTK function have a defect in the removal of pathogens and cell debris. This debris accumulates between the photoreceptors and retinal pigment epithelium; the photoreceptors die, and vision loss results. After delivery, the MERTK gene corrects the mutant gene causing retinitis pigmentosa and restores vision.

After demonstrating that the procedure is safe, the researchers plan to start a human clinical trial in seven patients, possibly as early as spring of 2010.

The studies are funded in part by the Prince Salman Center for Disability Research in Saudi Arabia. In the United States, retinitis pigmentosa affects one in 3,000 to 4,000 people.

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New Book Reveals Groundbreaking Insights About Human Vision

TROY, N.Y., July 2009 — In The Vision Revolution: How the Latest Research Overturns Everything We Thought We Knew About Human Vision (BenBella Books), neuroscientist and vision expert Mark Changizi presents human vision in a whole new light. His concepts go deeper than how the human eye works and analyze why humans see the way we do.

Written for non-experts and experts alike, The Vision Revolution explores the surprising new notion of human vision as superpowers, such as telepathy and X-ray vision. These powers explain key "why" questions including why humans see in color, why our eyes face forward unlike other animals' eyes, why we see illusions and why reading comes so naturally to us when it's a relatively new phenomenon in our evolutionary time line.

Changizi, an assistant professor of cognitive science at Rensselaer ­Polytechnic Institute in New York, aims to show how recent research identifies culture as a leading influence for human vision development. For example, he suggests that color vision evolved to give humans insight into other people's health and mental states by analyzing skin color. He also notes that the development of color vision closely parallels humans' loss of facial hair, which reveals the skin and color changes of the skin.

According to Changizi, our forward-facing eyes are like X-ray vision because we can see beyond objects. This enabled our primate ancestors to see targets in densely vegetated environments. He also makes the interesting point that the distance between eyes often correlates to an animal's habitat. Animals with closer-set eyes tend to live in forests, and those with eyes further apart often reside in plains.

Other visual "superpowers" are described in the book and depicted with color illustrations. Ultimately, The Vision Revolution indeed presents revolutionary concepts and may have a significant impact on our understanding of human vision.

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Men's Risk for Dry Eye Increases with Age

RIDGEWOOD, N.J., June 2009 — A new study reports that dry eye prevalence among men increases with age, affecting 3.9 percent of males who are 50 to 54 and 7.67 percent of men 80 years and older. Risk factors for dry eye in older men include hypertension, benign prostatic hyperplasia (nonmalignant enlargement of the prostate gland) and antidepressant use.

The researchers believe that one reason dry eye becomes more common with age is deterioration of the meibomian glands, which lubricate the eyelid. Deterioration of these glands also leads to the deficiency of androgen, a male hormone. It is believed that a decline in androgen is linked to eye problems.

Benign prostatic hyperplasia (also known as BPH or an enlarged prostate) increases the risk for dry eye because treatment involves anti-androgen medications. The condition is more common in men 50 and older.

The researchers found that the use of antidepressants is the most significant association among non-visual conditions or medications. Study participants had a nearly twofold higher risk for dry eye if taking an antidepressant. Although dry eye may not be listed as a side effect of antidepressants, some patients report blurred vision, which can be caused by dry eye.

Currently, dry eye affects 1.68 million men age 50 or older in the United States. Using projected census figures, the researchers predict that the number will rise to more than 2.79 million by 2030. They recommend further studies to understand what influences dry eye disease in an effort to develop more targeted interventions for patients.

The study was reported in the June issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

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Uveitis: Yet Another Reason Not To Smoke

TORONTO, May 2009 — Smokers are more likely than non-smokers to have uveitis (inflammation of the eye's uvea), says a new study.

A review of records of 565 uveitis patients showed that past or current smoking was associated with a 2.4 times greater than normal risk of having the condition. Uveitis symptoms include eye pain, redness, light sensitivity, blurred vision, floaters and tearing. The condition is chronic in some people.

The researchers noted that smoking has been associated with a poor prognosis in other inflammatory diseases as well.

The study results were presented at the 2009 annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision and Ophthalmology.

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New Study Found No Visual Complications from ED Medications

INDIANAPOLIS, April 2009 — Reports indicate that some men taking erectile dysfunction (ED) medications experience blurred vision and altered light perception; but a new study found no significant visual effects in men taking ED medications over a six-month period.

The study, reported in the April issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, measured visual differences among 194 healthy men ages 30 to 65. The researchers assigned one group to 5 milligrams of tadalafil (sold as Cialis), one group to 50 milligrams of sildenafil (sold as Viagra) and one group to a placebo.

The men underwent visual function tests, measurements of intraocular pressure, eye anatomy assessments and electroretinography (used to detect disease of the retina) before, during and after treatment. No significant differences were found between the groups.

The findings go against previous suggestions that the phodiesterase type 5 (PDE5) inhibitors that treat erectile dysfunction also may act on PDE5 compounds in the retina, causing visual side effects such as blue-tinged vision and light sensitivity.

Researchers stated that the frequency of erectile dysfunction increases with age, as do some ocular disorders including diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration and ocular vascular disease. Their findings indicated that no cumulative effects or damages occur after six months of taking erectile dysfunction medications daily.

Note: This study was supported by Eli Lilly and Company, which manufactures Cialis, and most of the researchers were either employees of or consultants to the company.

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Are Video Games Bad for the Eyes? To the Contrary, Says Study

ROCHESTER, N.Y., and TEL AVIV, Israel, April 2009 — Most people would assume that they'd need glasses, contact lenses or surgery to improve their eyes' contrast sensitivity. But maybe all they need to do is play video games?

Researchers at the University of Rochester in New York and the Goldschlager Eye Institute at Tel Aviv University have found that well practiced players of high-action video games become 58 percent better at noticing fine differences in contrast.

Twenty-two study participants were divided into groups. One played "Unreal Tournament 2004" and "Call of Duty 2," both action video games, while the other played "The Sims 2," which doesn't require as much hand-eye coordination as the other games.

The subjects played the games for 50 hours over nine weeks. The action game player group improved by 43 percent on average their ability to tell apart slightly different shades of gray, but the other group didn't improve at all.

These games actually train the brain to process visual information better, according to Daphne Bavelier, professor of brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester. The researchers noted that the changes lasted for months after the participants stopped playing the games.

"We think that the games are taking the brain's visual cortex to the limits, forcing it to adapt to the added stimuli of the action games," said Dr. Uri Polat of Tel Aviv University in a release.

The National Eye Institute and the Office of Naval Research funded the study, which Dr. Bavelier said he would like to use as a basis for research on treatment for amblyopia (lazy eye).

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Stroke Victims' Favorite Music May Help Them Regain Lost Vision

LONDON, April 2009 — Up to 60 percent of stroke victims experience "visual neglect," or an impaired visual awareness of the outside world, because of damage in areas of the brain responsible for vision, attention and action.

If the damage occurs in one side of the brain, the victim may have trouble seeing objects at the opposite side.

But a study of three stroke patients who had lost awareness of half of their field of vision suggests that listening to their favorite music helped them to regain their eyesight.

During the study, the three patients performed tasks while:

• Listening to their favorite music.
• Listening to music they didn't like.
• In silence.

Tasks included identification of colored shapes and red lights. For example, one patient could indicate a red light in 65 percent of instances while he listened to music he liked, but could do so only in 15 percent of instances when either music he didn't like or no music was played.

These tests, as well as functional MRI scans, led the researchers to suggest that positive emotions caused by the music resulted in more efficient signaling in the brain. Finding additional ways to make stroke patients happy also may help them to recover visual awareness and other functions.

Dr. David Soto was the lead author of the study from the Division of Neurosciences and Mental Health at Imperial College London; the study report appeared in the March 31 issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Weight Gain Data for Premature Infants May Indicate
Risk of Retinopathy of Prematurity

GOTHENBURG, Sweden, April 2009 — Premature infants have a higher risk than others of damage to important organs such as the eyes. Around a third will develop retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a sight-threatening eye disease.

Researchers in Sweden have found that the protein IGF-1 is linked to both ROP and infant weight gain. They have created an assessment model called WINROP (Weight IGF-1 Neonatal ROP), based on weekly measurements of infant weight and analyses of IGF-1 levels in the blood.

The model showed that following weekly weight gain alone can determine a preemie's risk of developing ROP, and it can make this determination before an ophthalmologist would see signs of it during an eye exam.

The implications are that ROP eye disease may be identified earlier and without the expense of multiple eye examinations.

More studies will evaluate the WINROP model this year, with further analysis due this summer. The Swedish study was conducted by the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg.

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Eye Care Use Among Severely Visually Impaired Without
Health Insurance Is Only 36 Percent

MIAMI, March 2009 — Most people without health care coverage are not seeking regular eye care even if they are severely visually impaired, says a study by David Lee, PhD, and his colleagues at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

By analyzing responses from almost 290,000 adults who answered the National Health Interview Survey from 1997 through 2005, researchers found that eye care use rates for people without health insurance were:

• 35.9 percent among severely visually impaired.
• 23.8 percent among those with some visual impairment.
• 14.3 percent for those without visual impairment.

People without health insurance for a year or longer had the lowest rates of eye care utilization. Low education and male gender also were important factors.

"Interventions designed to increase eye care utilization rates in select sociodemographic subgroups are needed," wrote the study authors. "Overall utilization rates may also be enhanced if progress is made toward dramatically increasing the number of Americans with health insurance."

The study was reported in the March issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

[How can you help? Learn about some non-profit organizations that help low-income people get the eye care and eyewear they need.]

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Researchers Predict Eye Color By Examining DNA

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands, March 2009 — A new study analyzed DNA of more than 6,000 Dutch people to predict with more than 90 percent accuracy whether people had blue or brown eyes.

Human eye color is considered a "complex trait," meaning several genes determine what the color will be in an adult. Researchers from the Erasmus University Medical Center Rotterdam analyzed DNA from six different positions of the genome and found that if someone's eyes are blue or brown, prediction accuracy is higher than 90 percent.

However, if someone's eyes have an intermediate color (found in 10 percent of study subjects), the accuracy is only around 75 percent.

According to the researchers, the study proves that we can predict complex traits from the genome sequence alone, so examining DNA may let us predict disease risks ahead of time.

The findings are important for criminal investigations as well, since eye color and possibly other traits, such as hair color, may be detected from DNA found at crime scenes.

The researchers cautioned that the study involved only Dutch European subjects, and it is unknown whether predictions would be accurate for other kinds of people.

The research report appeared in the March 10 issue of Current Biology.

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Do Your Eyes Reveal Your Age?

MEMPHIS, February 2009 — Your eyes are the most important physical feature you have when it comes to how others assess your age and vitality, according to a recent study at University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

Using eye-tracking methods, researchers analyzed where 47 young adults most often fixed their gaze when they were asked to evaluate photographs of older individuals and assess factors such as aging and fatigue.

Researchers found that:

• Although the eye area represents only 21 percent of the total face, study participants spent 46 percent of the time looking at this region while assessing age.
• The nose attracted about 19.2 percent of total scrutiny time during age assessment, followed by the forehead (13.3 percent) and area between eyebrows (10.6 percent).
• In fatigue assessments, participants spent 44.7 percent of the time looking at eyes, followed by the nose (18 percent), forehead (13.7 percent) and area between eyebrows (12.3 percent).

Researchers did note that, because images were static, the mouth area might attract more attention if videos were used and subjects were talking.

Study results partially aimed at helping plastic surgeons assess needs for cosmetic surgery procedures were published in the February issue of Ophthalmology.

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Unique Fish Use Mirror-Like Eyes To See

BRISTOL, England, January 2009 — Spookfish have eyes with unique, mirror-like properties that can reflect images onto the retina to achieve sight, according to recent discoveries by University of Bristol researchers.

"In nearly 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, and many thousands of vertebrate species living and dead, this is the only one known to have solved the fundamental optical problem faced by all eyes — how to make an image using a mirror," said university professor Julian Partridge.

Spookfish have adapted to live in a deep, dark ocean environment where very little light is available. While the fish appears to have four eyes, it actually has only two that are "split" into different functions. One half of the eye is aimed upward to view the ocean and potential food, whereas the other half points downward to scan for possible threats from below.

The downward-pointing portions of spookfish eyes can catch flashes of bioluminescence from creatures living in the otherwise dark environment below. But unlike normal eyes, this portion of the spookfish eye actually acts as a mirror that reflects light onto the retina.

Researchers said the mirror-like function of the spookfish eye enables survival in a dark environment because of enhanced ability to see even dimly lit images in bright, high contrast.

Study results were published in the January issue of Current Biology.

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Paintball Injuries Can Be "Visually Devastating"

MIAMI, January 2009 — New evidence shows that paintball injuries can be severe and "visually devastating," according to researchers at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami.

Particularly when paintball is played outside supervised settings and without eye shields or safety goggles, eye injuries can include ruptured eyeballs and detached retinas.

A study of eye injuries reported in the February issue of American Journal of Ophthalmology found that:

• Of 36 people treated for eye injuries related to paintball between 1998 and 2005, most were young men with an average age of 21.
• Ruptured eyeballs were found in 28 percent of patients and detached retinas in 19 percent.
• Eye surgery was needed in 81 percent of patients, and complete removal of the eye was needed 22 percent of the time.
• Even when the eye was preserved, most people had permanent visual loss. Only 36 percent of eyes regained near normal vision (20/40 or better).

"High-velocity paintballs can cause tremendous damage to vital ocular structures, often requiring extensive surgical intervention," said Miami researcher Kyle J. Alliman, MD. "Unfortunately, visual loss is often permanent."

Alliman said proper eye protection can prevent more than 97 percent of eye injuries related to paintball.

Please click here for more eye and vision news from 2008.

[Page updated March 11, 2010]