Hi everyone!
Just a small post about something I read in passing…Now I’m willing to bet that a lot of you have grandparents, parents, some sort of relative or at least a family friend that suffers with cataracts. Myself included; two of my grandparents have had cataracts procedures to remove the part of their eye that they cannot see from and have had many a gruesome story relaid to me about the burning retinas.. however, this may be a thing of the past with scientists currently researching eye drops that could essentially help cataracts patients preserve their sight.
According to a new study, cheap eye drops could soon be available for cataracts sufferers. Scientists have discovered a chemical that reduces the trademark ‘clouding’ that appears over the eye, and could be widely available within five years.
Cataracts are the world’s main cause of blindness and affects the vision of over half the elderly population. Currently, the only effective treatment which is readily available is surgery but this isn’t without it’s complications. Many patients are unfortunately left unable to read or drive and are forced to wait until their sight deteriorates even further before they can qualify for surgery in some areas.
The image above, although rather gruesome, shows the removal of a cataract from the patient’s eye. Although not said to be painful, it isn’t really that pleasant to watch either!
This study, which was published recently in ‘Nature’, found that the chemical lanosterol (main molecule in steroids), can break up the proteins that cloud the lens of the eye. Researchers tested lanosterol eye drops on elderly dogs and rabbits and found that within six weeks, their vision had improved. It is now hoped that the trials will progress onto human subjects to be one step further to being approved for distributing.
As you can see, the world of clinical trials really improves the chances of certain diseases or problems being cured. It’s extremely important in science to conduct experiments on as many different subjects as possible to be able to progress at all and in this day and age, progression really is the only way to continue.
Until next time,
M x
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