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These researchers found that 39 women with retinopathy, damages to the retinas of the eyes, scored lower on the cognitive tests and had more areas with damaged blood vessels in their brains than those without retinopathy. In order to help patients to discover their health problems as early as possible, the researchers suggested that a simple eye screening could indicate if their brain health might be at risk.
Furthermore, the researchers at a U.S.-based health care organization—Kaiser Permanente stated that overweight or obese children have an increased risk of developing blindness. The researchers analyzed data collected from 900,000 children aged between two and nineteen years, identified 78 cases of idiopathic intracranial hypertension (IIH) in these children, and found 73% of the patients were overweight or obese. IIH, also known as pseudotumor cerebri, is a disorder related to increased pressure within the skull that is not caused by a tumor or other diseases. Symptoms of IIH include blurred or double vision, buzzing sound in the ears, dizziness, nausea, and headache. IIH can lead to blindness in up to 10% of patients in severe cases, especially when the patients are not diagnosed and treated immediately. The researchers discovered that overweight children have a 3.5 times higher risk of developing IIH than normal weight children. In the same manner, moderately obese and extremely obese children have a 6 and 16 times higher risk, respectively.
The U.S. National Eye Institute (NEI) of the National Institute of Health warns that most common eye problems people usually ignored are blurred and double visions, haziness, glare or halos around bright lights, squinting, as well as eyestrain. These symptoms can be signs for further severe eye illnesses like, glaucoma, cataract, age-related macular degeneration, and so forth. Taking eyestrain as an example, two individual studies conducted by Japanese and U.S researchers both reported that eyestrain is an extremely common eye problem occurring over 70% of people who perform extended visual tasks. NEI therefore suggests that eating more vegetables like dark leafy greens or collard greens, as well as fishes rich in omega-3 fatty acids like salmon, tuna, and halibut will help maintaining our eye health. Also, maintaining a healthy weight and quit or never start smoking will definitely reduce our risks of developing eye diseases. On top of that, giving our eyes a rest by implementing the 20-20-20 rule: every 20 minutes, look away about 20 feet (six meters) in front of you for 20 seconds, is perhaps the most effective method of reducing eyestrain, NEI highlights.
In addition to the aforementioned methods, some Japanese researchers found that two natural antioxidants: astaxanthin and crocetin are good for our eye health. According to their clinical studies conducted on several male participants aged between 45 and 65 years, astaxanthin and crocetin intake for four weeks could increase the rate of miosis which helped pupillary movements and improve symptoms associated with eyestrain and presbyopia. As a result, the researchers recommend that consuming dietary supplements or functional foods containing rich astaxanthin and crocetin can be an additional approach to help keeping our eyes healthy.
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