Getting older tends to go hand in hand with failing vision, but eye experts say there are things you can do to preserve your sight as you age. The risk of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and diabetic retinopathy increases among seniors, but vision loss and blindness aren’t a foregone conclusion, according to the American Society of Retina Specialists (ASRS). Not only is healthy vision key to staying active, but studies have shown that older adults with vision issues face a higher risk of developing dementia. What can you do to avoid that fate? Here are some tips from the ASRS: Learn the signs of common retinal conditions. AMD affects 19.8 million Americans and is the leading cause of vision loss among older Americans. Another retinal condition, diabetic retinopathy, strikes 9.6 million Americans and is the leading cause of blindness in working-age adults. Hallmark symptoms of AMD include warping of straight lines, a decrease in the brightness of colors, gradual or sudden loss of central vision and dark, blurry areas in the center of vision. Diabetic retinopathy symptoms include blurry central vision, seeing spots, floaters or a shadow across the field of vision, difficulty reading, eye pressure and difficulty with color perception. Know your family history. Ask older family members if they have had vision issues. Retinal conditions may have a genetic component that runs in families. Other common risk factors…  read on >  read on >

It seems like a kind of superpower, but scientists say they’ve used a common food dye to render the skin of a mouse transparent, revealing the workings of blood vessels and organs underneath. It’s not yet clear if the procedure could work on human skin, which is thicker than that of a mouse. But the prospect is tantalizing, researchers said. ″Looking forward, this technology could make veins more visible for the drawing of blood, make laser-based tattoo removal more straightforward, or assist in the early detection and treatment of cancers,″ said study co-leader Guosong Hong, a Stanford University assistant professor of materials science and engineering. ″For example, certain therapies use lasers to eliminate cancerous and precancerous cells, but are limited to areas near the skin’s surface,” he explained in a news release from the U.S. National Science Foundation. “This technique may be able to improve that light penetration.″   The Foundation helped fund the new study, which was published Sept. 5 in the journal Science. Dr. Zihao Ou, an assistant professor of physics at the University of Texas (UT) at Dallas, helped lead the research. In a UT news release, he explained that living skin can’t normally be seen through because its various components — fats, cellular fluids, proteins — scatter light waves. But when the researchers applied a mix of water and a safe,…  read on >  read on >

Gene therapy may restore vision to children and adults robbed of their sight by a rare inherited condition called Leber congenital amaurosis, researchers report. The illness is caused by mutations in the GUCY2D gene, which is critical to producing proteins that enable vision. People with this form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA1) typically lose their vision in early childhood. Just under 100,000 people are thought to be affected worldwide. However, a team of researchers at the University of Pennsylvania say that a new gene therapy injected under the retinas of children and adults with LCA1 improved vision by 100 to 10,000 times. “Even though we previously predicted a large vision improvement potential in LCA1, we did not know how receptive patients’ [eye] photoreceptors would be to treatment after decades of blindness,” noted study co-lead author Artur Cideciyan, a research professor of ophthalmology at the university. “It is very satisfying to see a successful multi-center trial that shows gene therapy can be dramatically efficacious.” The findings were published Sept. 5 in The Lancet journal. A total of 15 LCA1 patients — 12 adults and three children — participated in the new trial. All had vision that was equal to or below 20/80, meaning that objects a normally sighted person could see at 80 feet could only be clear at 20 feet away for a person with…  read on >  read on >

Thinking about quitting smoking? There are three top ways to help you stop, a new review finds. According to the study, folks wanting to quit should turn to: Varenicline, a prescription nicotine-blocking drug sold under the brand names Chantix and Champix Cytisine, a plant-based compound sold as an over-the-counter supplement in Canada and Europe Nicotine e-cigarettes “Quitting smoking is difficult, and some people find it harder to quit than others, but tobacco is uniquely deadly among legal consumer products, so it’s important to seek help quitting,” said lead investigator Jonathan Livingstone-Banks, a lecturer and researcher in evidence-based health care with the University of Oxford in the U.K. “There’s a range of effective forms of support for smoking cessation, and cytisine, varenicline and e-cigarettes are all evidence-based ways to greatly increase people’s chances of successfully quitting smoking,” Livingstone-Banks added. These strategies work best when combined with counseling or other behavioral support, researchers said. “For behavioral support, evidence is strongest for counseling and for programs that reward people for stopping smoking,” said senior researcher Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, an assistant professor of health policy and management with the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Sciences. Bupropion and nicotine replacement therapy are also effective, especially if nicotine patches are combined with fast-acting forms like gum, researchers said. The new study was published Sept. 4 in the…  read on >  read on >

A new brain imaging study has concluded that autism likely isn’t caused by faulty connections to the amygdala. A prevailing hypothesis of autism spectrum disorder has held that people with the condition have poorer neural connections in certain brain regions, including the amygdala. However, researchers found no evidence that people with autism had amygdala connections that differed substantially to those found in people without autism. The amygdala is a small, almond-shaped structure in the brain that plays a key role in processing emotions and social cues, researchers explained. For the study, researchers analyzed high-quality MRI brain scans from 488 people, including 212 with autism. The team focused on the neural connections emanating from the amygdala when the participants were not actively engaged in any tasks. Average variation in connectivity to the amygdala was similar in people with and without autism, results showed. The results were the same when researchers looked at specific subregions of the amygdala, researchers added. The new study was published in the American Journal of Psychiatry. “It is important to note that we do not conclude that amygdala [connectivity] is generally typical in autism. Instead, we conclude that the evidence for atypical [connectivity] of the amygdala in autism is weak at best, and unreliable,” concluded the researchers led by Dorit Kliemann, an assistant professor of psychological and brain sciences with the University…  read on >  read on >

Folks taking weight-loss drugs like Wegovy or Zepbound might think they’ve found a shortcut to better health. But they still need to eat a high-quality diet if they want to maintain their well-being while they shed pounds, says a doctor with the University of Texas Southwestern. “One common misconception about these medications is that they’re a magic bullet for better health, and it doesn’t necessarily matter what you eat when you’re taking them. Nothing could be further from the truth,” said Dr. Jaime Almondoz, director of UT Southwestern’s Weight Wellness Center. The typical American diet contains loads of ultra-processed, calorie-dense foods, but is often deficient in fruits, vegetables, fiber and essential nutrients, Almondoz said. People on weight-loss drugs could suffer loss of muscle mass, fatigue, malnutrition and other health consequences if they don’t eat healthy, Almondoz said. Folks preparing for bariatric surgery are required to have multiple visits with a registered dietitian to create a healthy eating plan for them going forward. “No such guidelines exist yet for anti-obesity medications, though patients now lose similar amounts of weight with these medications as they do with bariatric surgery,” Almondoz said in a UT Southwestern news release. A few basic steps can reduce the risk of GI side effects while taking weight loss drugs, Almondoz said. These include: Avoiding fried and high-fat foods Limiting intake of carbonated drinks,…  read on >  read on >

FRIDAY, Aug.30, 2024New trials are showing how the blockbuster diabetes and weight-loss meds Ozempic and Wegovy can boost health in even more ways. These two injected drugs are versions of semaglutide. In multiple new data analyses, the drugs appeared to cut people’s odds for heart failure and its complications, reduce deaths from COVID-19 and lower deaths from any cause. Semaglutide is a member of family of drugs called GLP-1 agonists, which work by mimicking the effect of a natural hormone that helps reduce appetite, hunger and food intake.  The latest findings were presented Thursday in London at the annual meeting of the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and published simultaneously in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC). The data show that “these groundbreaking medications are poised to revolutionize cardiovascular care and could dramatically enhance cardiovascular health,” said Dr. Harlan Krumholz, JACC Editor-in-Chief and a professor of medicine at Yale University. Some of the findings derive from sub-analyses of data from a major trial called SELECT, which included more than 17,000 people who were overweight or obese and had been diagnosed with heart disease, but not diabetes. The trial was funded by semaglutide’s maker, Novo Nordisk, and in findings published in November it found that the 2.4 milligram (mg) dose of the drug cut the odds of heart-related deaths, heart attacks and strokes. In…  read on >  read on >