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  Approval to distribute the Alpha IMS wireless implant for retinitis pigmentosa (RP) has been granted in Europe to Retina Implant AG, based in Reutlingen, Germany.  Thirty-six patients have received the subretinal implant, designed to restore useful vision to people legally blinded by RP.

Retinitis pigmentosa is a generative eye disease that begins in young people and may be inherited. RP patients may be able to
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The success of the study indicates the potential for using the drug to improve heart function in humans.

The Buck Institute study used laboratory mice at an age comparable to humans in their 70s. After three months of treatment with rapamycin, the mice showed improved heart function. Ultrasound images indicated their hearts were more efficient in pumping blood. The mice also spent more of their time on running wheels.

Cardiovascular disease (heart disease) is the leading cause of death in Americans, claiming approximately 600,000 lives and costing $109 billion each year.
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This newly discovered anatomical structure is named for its discoverer, researcher Dr. Harminder Dua of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Nottingham in the UK. Dua stated that this major discovery will not only cause ophthalmology textbooks to be rewritten, but that this new knowledge will also make eye operations safer and simpler.

The cornea is known as the “clear window” of the eye. Dua’s Layer is a thin but tough structure, near the cornea’s bottom layer. Dua and his colleagues used a specialized technique while dissecting eyes to make this discovery. Previously, science had identified only five layers of the cornea. Dua found the new layer between the corneal stroma (the middle of the cornea) and Descemet’s membrane (the second-to-bottom layer of the cornea).
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In patients with multiple sclerosis, the immune system incorrectly reacts to myelin, the insulating sheath that covers nerves in the brain, optic nerve, and spinal cord, and then destroys it, disrupting normal transmission of electrical signals. This results in symptoms from partial limb numbness to paralysis and blindness.

The new human trial is part of a collaboration between Northwestern’s Feinberg School, University Hospital Zurich in Switzerland and University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany.
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 The study appeared in Stroke, the journal of the American Heart Association. Researchers from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Schools of Public Health reported that the risk is especially high for older women. They connect lower levels of  the hormone DHEAS, or dehydroepiandrosterone  sulfate, with this higher stroke risk.

The study’s subjects included women from the Nurses’ Health Study of 1976. They had no reported history of strokes when they joined that study.  The levels of DHEAS of these women were tested between 1989 & 1990. The 461 stroke patients were matched up for age, race,
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New evidence continues to support dietary lutein, carotenoids, zeaxanthin, and meso-zeaxanthin as a means of inhibiting development of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is the leading cause of loss of vision in Western people over age 55.

A study published in 2010, in Archives of Biochemistry and Biophysics by the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at University of Utah, found that production of singlet oxygen in the human retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) and choroid is prevented or reduced by lutein, zeaxanthin, and meso-zeaxanthin, which act as
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 OSA requires proper diagnosis and management. This ailment often goes untreated, despite being recognized nearly 50 years ago.

With a 9% incidence rate among the female Caucasian population of the United States and 24% in the male Caucasian population, more than 80% of those affected by OSA are believed to be undiagnosed, or untreated even if they are.

So what does obstructive sleep apnea have to do with proper eye care?
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Ask any of the countless people with substandard vision if there was one thing they could change about themselves and the typical response will be 20/20 vision. Betty Ming Liu, like most glasses-wearing individuals, had simply accepted the fuzzy side of life and continual degeneration of her eyes. Betty and her 20/650 vision had begun to additionally require the help of reading glasses to get by. She was less-than-enthused by the prospect of laser eye surgery.

By chance, Betty was introduced to holistic eye doctor Marc Grossman who opened her to the idea of eye exercises that promised to improve her vision. Within the
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A recent study linking cholesterol and macular degeneration may shed light on a highly significant problem caused by aging and potentially illuminates hope for a treatment or perhaps even a cure.

Macular degeneration is the leading cause in partial or complete blindness of adults over 60 in the United States. The disease targets the macula in the eyes which in large part is what enables us to perceive the fine detail that allows us do things like reading and driving.

A new study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism on April 2 2013, involved the study of macrophages from old mice and humans with macular degeneration. Macrophages, white blood cells that deconstruct cholesterol, have been found in higher than normal concentration in subjects with macular degeneration. In previous studies, this cellular build up has been shown
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