To Your Health: Seeing better health in your future
By GILLIAN SLADE on October 21, 2019.
gslade@medicinehatnews.com
Most of us are aware of the benefits of physical exercise, including heart health, but it can also play an important role in your vision.
Most of us spend more time than we realize staring at our mobile device, working on a computer, watching television or Netflix, or even reading a book. Do any of these activities for many hours a day and your eyes have been focused on something about 30 to 45 cm away from your eyes. It makes it more difficult for your eyes to adjust to viewing things further away or into the distance.
It is always a good idea to periodically give your eyes a rest from the task you are focused on and look up into the distance. Give your eyes an opportunity to adjust.
There has been some research about the benefits of exercise, even daily walks, in relation to reducing age-related vision loss and in particular macular degeneration, which is one of the leading causes of blindness for seniors.
The Emory Eye Centre in Atlanta, U.S. studied mice that ran on a treadmill for two weeks. They were then exposed to bright lights to trigger the loss of retinal cells and mimic the effects of macular degeneration.
The mice that had exercised had almost twice as many photoreceptors than those that had not been exercising. Their retina cells were also much more responsive to light.
Macular degeneration begins when photoreceptors in the retina are blocked, the equivalent of a camera in the back of the eye no longer turning light signals into impulses sent to the nerves.
The lead on the research project, Dr. Machelle Pardue, said the treadmill exercise for the mice is the equivalent of a daily brisk walk for humans.
The exercising rodents had higher levels of BDNE – a growth factor protein in their blood, brain and retinas.
Pardue said the benefits were cancelled when the BDNF was chemically blocked.
The researchers are now investigating the influence of exercise on other eye diseases such as glaucoma.
You really have nothing to loose though by taking a daily brisk walk every day.
Going for a brisk walk gives you another perspective on life, your community, and it is an opportunity to interact with others who are also out for a walk. Add a dog to the equation and you have even more benefits because you are more likely to engage in conversation with others and there are health benefits to that too.
Here’s to the least complicated form of exercise – walking – and here’s To Your Health.
To Your Health is a weekly column by Gillian Slade, health reporter for the News, bringing you news on health issues and research from around the world. You can reach her at
gslade@medicinehatnews.com or 403-528-8635.
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