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Eyes are Unique Window to Predict Diseases

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Looking people straight in the eye may or may not reveal their honesty — but the eyes *can* tell you about cholesterol, liver disease, or diabetes, if you know what to look for.

Click to see the picture

Your eyes are a unique window into health. Yahoo Health has assembled a list of 14 things your eyes can tell you about your entire body.
Some of them are mentioned below:-

*Disappearing eyebrows : When the outer third of your eyebrow starts to disappear on its own, this is a common sign of thyroid disease.

*A stye that won’t go away : If it doesn’t clear up in three months, or keeps recurring in the same location, it could be a rare cancer called sebaceous gland carcinoma.

*Burning eyes, blurry vision while using a computer : This is the result of “computer vision syndrome” (CVS). The eyestrain is partly caused by the lack of contrast on a computer screen, and the extra work involved in focusing on pixels.

*A small blind spot in your vision, with shimmering lights or a wavy line : A migraine aura produces this disturbed vision. It may or may not be accompanied by a headache.

*Whites of the eye turned yellowish : This is known as jaundice. It appears in either newborns with immature liver function, or adults with problems of the liver, gallbladder, or bile ducts.

*Eyes that seem to bulge : The most common cause of protruding eyes is hyperthyroidism, which is overactivity of the thyroid gland.

*Sudden double vision, dim vision, or loss of vision : These are the visual warning signs of stroke.

*Blurred vision in a diabetic : Diabetics are at increased risk for several eye problems, but the most common is diabetic retinopathy, in which diabetes affects the circulatory system of the eye. It’s the leading cause of blindness in American adults.

For the rest of the list, click on the link below.

Sources: Yahoo Health February 3, 2011

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Diagnonistic Test

Fluorescein Angiography (Test for Diabetic Retinopathy)

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Alternative Names: Retinal photography; Eye angiography

Definition:
Fluorescein angiography is an eye test that uses an special dye and camera to look at blood flow in the retina and choroid……...CLICK & SEE

By looking into the back of your eye (the retina), eye doctors can see changes in the blood vessels there that show whether you are at risk for losing vision from diabetes or other causes. The earliest changes can be seen only with a special test called fluorescein angiography. For this test, a chemical that temporarily makes the blood vessels fluorescent and shows very tiny leaks in them is injected into one of your arm or hand veins while you are having your eyes examined.

This test is used to determine if there is proper circulation in the blood vessels of the retina. It can also be used to diagnose problems in the eye or to determine how well treatment is working.

Preparation  for the test:
You should arrange to have someone else drive you home from the eye doctor, because your eyes will be dilated; this can make your eyes sensitive to the sun and your vision blurry for a while.

You may be told to discontinue drugs that could affect the test. results. Tell your health care provide about any allergies, particularly reactions to iodine.

You must sign an informed consent form. You must remove contact lenses before the test.

Tell the health care provider if you may be pregnant.


How the Test Is Performed

Eye drops that make the pupil dilate will be given. You will be asked to place your chin on a chin rest, and your forehead against a support bar to keep your head still during the test.

Fluorescein angiography->…..CLICK & SEE

The health care provider will take pictures of the inside of your eye. After the first group of pictures are taken, a special dye called fluorescein is injected into your vein, usually at the bend of the elbow. A special camera takes pictures of the dye as it moves through the blood vessels in the back of the eye.

More photographs are taken up to 20 minutes after the injection.

What happens when the test is performed?
You have drops put into your eye to make the pupil dilate (open), and you have to wait for about half an hour while the drops take effect. Before giving you any other medicine, your doctor might first examine your eyes for signs of bleeding or debris outside of your retina arteries; these are signs of more advanced eye disease from diabetes. Then a nurse inserts a small needle into one of the veins in your arm or hand so that you can have a dose of medicine injected. Your doctor uses a special eye camera to take pictures of your retina. You look into one side of the camera while your doctor looks through the other side. The camera shines a dim blue light into your eye, which causes the dye flowing through the retina arteries to show up as fluorescent green. The doctor takes a collection of pictures of your eyes to review more closely later.

This color retinal photograph demonstrates nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy. The image is centered on the macula (the part of the retina responsible for central fine vision) with part of the optic nerve seen on the left of the photo (left eye). There are hemorrhages within the retinal tissue on the right side of the photograph.

How the Test Will Feel
When the needle is inserted , some people feel moderate pain, while others feel only a prick or stinging sensation. Afterward, there may be some throbbing.

When the dye is injected, you may have mild nausea and a warm sensation. These symptoms are usually very brief.

Normal Results:
A normal result means the vessels appear a normal size and there are no blockages or leakages.
Back to TopWhat Abnormal Results Mean
If blockage or leakage is present, the pictures will map the location for possible treatment.

An abnormal value on a fluorescein angiography may be due to:

*Blood flow (circulatory) problems
*Cancer
*Diabetic or other retinopathy
*Inflammation or edema
*Macular degeneration
*Microaneurysms — enlargement of capillaries in the retina
*Tumors
*Swelling of the optic disc

Additional conditions under which the test may be performed:

Retinal detachment
Retinal vessel occlusion
Retinitis pigmentosa

Risk Factors:
There are no special risks from this test, although your vision may be blurry for an hour or more after the test because your pupils are dilated. The dye fluorescein is excreted from your body in your urine, which might give your urine a bright or discolored appearance for a day.

There is a slight chance of infection any time the skin is broken. Rarely, a person is hypersensitive to the dye and may experience:

*Dizziness or faintness
*Dry mouth or increased salivation
*Hives
*Increased heart rate
*Metallic taste in mouth
*Nausea and vomiting
*Sneezing
*Serious allergic reactions are rare.

Your urine will be darker, and possibly orange in color, for a day or two after the test.

Must you do  after the test is over?

You will need to wear sunglasses for a few hours until your pupils are no longer dilated.

Considerations:
People with cataracts will have less accurate test results.

How long is it before the result of the test is known?
Your doctor can often discuss the results of the test with you at the end of your visit. He or she might recommend treatment (such as eye laser treatments) if your test reveals retina disease.

Click to see:->How does diabetes affect the retina?

Resources:
https://www.health.harvard.edu/diagnostic-tests/fluorescein-angiography.htm
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/test/fluorescein-angiography/overview.html

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News on Health & Science

Turmeric Can Prevent Diabetes

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Indian scientists have found yet another reason why turmeric should be part of our daily diet.
………………………………..

Lab experiments in the past have shown that curcumin – the yellowish component of the Indian curry spice turmeric – is able to fight skin, breast and other tumour cells. It is also known to lower the chances of getting Alzheimer’s disease and haemorrhagic stroke.

Now a team at the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation (MDRF) in Chennai reports that curcumin also blocks a key biological pathway needed for development of diabetic retinopathy, an eye complication among diabetics that leads to blindness if untreated.

“This is the first scientifically documented evidence of the molecular action of curcumin against diabetic retinopathy,” the researchers claim in a report published in a recent issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science.

The study was prompted by an interesting observation made by the MDRF team while analysing the data from an epidemiology study it had completed in urban Chennai earlier.

The study showed that the prevalence of diabetic retinopathy in Indians is lower than that reported among Europeans suggesting there could be something in the diet that gave protection to Indians. What was that something?

“We suspected it was turmeric,” says Mohan Rema, chief ophthalmologist and vice-president at MDRF. The hunch turned out to be correct.

In diabetic retinopathy, abnormal new blood vessels grow in the retina – the light sensitive layer lining the back of the eye – due to a process called “angiogenesis“. These new vessels are thin and fragile and tend to bleed resulting in sudden and total loss of vision.

Angiogenesis that involves the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing vessels is a normal process as in wound healing. But this is also a key step that helps tumours to grow. Angiogenesis inhibitors (or anti-antigenic drugs) prevent the formation of new blood vessels so that the tumour cannot grow.

“Our guess was that curcumin which shows anti-angiogenic effects against various cancers may also inhibit the growth of new blood vessels in the retina and thereby prevent diabetic retinopathy,” said Muthuswamy Balasubramanyam, cell biologist and assistant director of MDRF who is one of the authors of the paper describing the study. “Our laboratory experiments have confirmed this.”

Diabetic retinopathy results when the so called “endothelial cells” that line the inside of retinal blood vessels proliferate and migrate away from the parent vessels to form a network of new fragile micro capillaries which bleed.

“We have demonstrated that curcumin inhibits the migration of cells thereby blocking a key step that leads to retinopathy,” Balasubramanyam said. Other authors of this work include research scholars Zaheer Sameermahmood and Thangavel Saravanan.

Turmeric which is a major ingredient of curry has been consumed for thousands of years and has been used in traditional Indian, Chinese, and Western herbal medicine.

While much of the world literature dealt with the anti-cancer actions of curcumin, the work at MDRF for the first time emphasizes its use against diabetic retinopathy, the scientists said.

Headed by Viswanathan Mohan, a renowned diabetologist, MDRF is exclusively devoted to research on diabetes and its vascular complication.

Sources: The Times Of India

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