Blindness News and Research

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In retinal disease, sight may depend on second sites

If two people have the same genetic disease, why would one person go blind in childhood but the other later in life or not at all? For a group of genetic diseases - so-called ciliary diseases that include Bardet-Biedl syndrome, Meckel-Gruber syndrome, and Joubert syndrome - the answer lies in one gene that is already linked to two of these diseases and also seems to increase the risk of progressive blindness in patients with other ciliary diseases. The findings are published online this week at Nature Genetics.

12 May 2009

Start taking a vitamin with folic acid before pregnancy

Women who take folic acid supplements for at least one year before they become pregnant may cut their risk of having a premature baby by half, according to research published this week in the online journal, PLOS Medicine.

12 May 2009

Protein kinase JNK1 identified as treatment target for retinopathy in premature babies

Results of a study in mice by researchers at the University of California, San Diego strongly suggest that the protein kinase JNK1 plays a key role in the development of retinopathy in premature infants.

4 May 2009

Benfotiamene, a fat-soluble form of vitamin B1, could treat common cause of blindness

University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston researchers have discovered that a form of vitamin B1 could become a new and effective treatment for one of the world's leading causes of blindness.

23 Apr 2009

How cells control the great divide

A scientist whose work is key to understanding how cancer cells divide and spread in the body is to present advances in his latest research at a public forum to be held at the University of Leicester.

22 Apr 2009

Laughter improves health

The connection between the body, mind and spirit has been the subject of conventional scientific inquiry for some 20 years.

20 Apr 2009

Strange glaucoma puzzle solved

Scientists studying a rare form of glaucoma have discovered why people in the disparate Roma communities are at greater risk of inheriting a condition leading to permanent blindness than other groups in the population.

15 Apr 2009

Topical bevacizumab therapy effective in treating corneal blood vessels growth that can cause blindness

Researchers at the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary and Schepens Eye Research Institute have concluded that short-term topical bevacizumab therapy reduces the severity of corneal neovascularization (formation of new blood vessels in the cornea that can create impaired vision or vision loss) without local or systemic adverse effects.

15 Apr 2009

Visual impairment will increase as population ages, but treatment can mitigate effects

Health care providers can expect a significant increase in age-related macular degeneration as the baby boom generation reaches retirement age, according to a new study by researchers at RTI International and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

13 Apr 2009

New therapies expected to help reduce future burden of age-related macular degeneration

The prevalence of the eye disease age-related macular degeneration is projected to increase substantially by 2050, but the use of new therapies is expected to help mitigate its effects on vision, according to results of simulation modeling reported in the April issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

13 Apr 2009

Stem cell therapy used to restore transparency in corneas

Stem cells collected from human corneas restore transparency and don't trigger a rejection response when injected into eyes that are scarred and hazy, according to experiments conducted in mice by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

12 Apr 2009

New, simple method identifies preterm infants at risk of eye disease

A simple way of establishing which preterm infants are at risk of developing the eye disease ROP is to follow their weight gain. A new study from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg, Sweden, suggests that following weekly weight development might replace the need for considerably more expensive ophthalmological examinations.

7 Apr 2009

What drives brain changes in macular degeneration?

In macular degeneration, the most common form of adult blindness, patients progressively lose vision in the center of their visual field, thereby depriving the corresponding part of the visual cortex of input.

2 Apr 2009

FDA approves generic Topamax tablets (topiramate)

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first generic versions of Topamax tablets (topiramate) to prevent seizures.

1 Apr 2009

Rigorous visual training helps the brain to see again after stroke

By doing a set of vigorous visual exercises on a computer every day for several months, patients who had gone partially blind as a result of suffering a stroke were able to regain some vision, according to scientists who published their results in the April 1 issue of the Journal of Neuroscience.

1 Apr 2009

Eye cells believed to be retinal stem cells are misidentified

Cells isolated from the eye that many scientists believed were retinal stem cells are, in fact, normal adult cells, investigators at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have found.

30 Mar 2009

Community spread of trachoma could be stopped by treating all household members

All members of the household need to be treated for trachoma in order to prevent rapid re-infection, according to a new study published in PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

30 Mar 2009

River blindness under control in Escuintla, Guatemala

An international team of researchers led by Rodrigo Gonzalez of the Universidad del Valle de Guatemala reports that the transmission of onchocerciasis or river blindness has been broken in Escuintla, Guatemala, one of the largest endemic areas in the Western Hemisphere to date to stop the transmission of the parasitic disease.

30 Mar 2009

Dapagliflozin trial results indicate improvement in key glycemic measures in treatment-naive type 2 diabetes

Findings published in Diabetes Care from a 12-week, Phase IIb dose-ranging study showed that dapagliflozin, a novel, selective, sodium glucose co-transporter2 (SGLT2) inhibitor, produced clinically meaningful reductions across all key glycemic measures studied [glycosylated hemoglobin level (HbA1c), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), and postprandial plasma glucose (PPG)] in treatment-naive type 2 diabetes patients, compared to placebo.

29 Mar 2009

Discovery of protein that reactivates latent herpes simplex virus

Research in Public Library of Science (PLoS) Pathogens appears to solve a long standing medical mystery by identifying a viral protein, VP16, as the molecular key that prompts herpes simplex virus (HSV) to exit latency and cause recurrent disease.

29 Mar 2009