Different cultures have always considered eyes as the widows of our souls. However, according to a recent study, eyes can hold the key to revealing several life-threatening health problems.
A study conducted by the Neurology Medical Journal is now telling doctors how eyes can predict future memory loss issues. Especially in people that are above 60 years of age. How can they do it? Just by looking at microscopic changes inside the eyes’ blood vessels!
Cognitive Impairment
The study which involved more than 12,000 people above the age of 50, were carefully examined for their cognitive skills over the course of 2 decades. During this period, scientists had to use a special, advanced camera. It captured high resolution images of the people’s eyes so they could then study the retinal tissues (in the back of their eyes) whose main function is to send electrical impulses to the brain.
Even though it is long known that cognitive impairment can be directly caused by circulatory and cardiovascular diseases, in today’s medicine, doctors could diagnose this condition only after the damage was done and the only thing patients could do was to keep it under control by following the recommended treatments. However, now, scientists can predict this condition by carefully studying the eye tissues.
Jennifer Deal from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, one of the main researchers, was the one able to initially find this advanced way that could achieve the prediction of this condition by studying blood capillaries and the eyes’ vessels in order to understand the processes that are happening inside the brain.
Diabetes
One of the many serious health conditions doctors can now predict by studying the vessels inside the eyes is Diabetes. Buildup of cholesterol in people, especially the ones who suffer from high blood pressure, is now predictable by looking inside the cornea of the eye.
Cancer and Thyroid Disease
The scientists found out that through thyroid gland whcih is used by our system to produce teardrops inside our eyes; they are now able to instantly detect any possible thyroid malfunction by analyzing the moisture in the eye.
They also found out that some cancers such as leukemia and lymphoma can be in fact picked up at an early stage! Scientists suggest that an annual visit to the doctor can now indicate any early sign of this life-threatening basal cancer. How? By studying the sensitive skin around the eyes. Ocular melanoma is also one of the tumors that doctors can predict by studying this eye area.
