A group of American and Israeli researchers were able to detect Alzheimer’s disease by observing some changes in a part of the eyes known as the retina.
The research as published on the Israel Medical Association’s
Hebrew-language Journal searches the retina for the presence of beta-amyloid
plaques and abnormal proteins in the retina of the eyes.
Retina is the light sensitive part of the eyes. The
photoreceptors of the retina serve as light absorber which then pass light data
to the retinal ganglion cell layer before the brain converts the data into useful
information, the images.
Alzheimer’s disease (AD), also known as the Alzheimer’s syndrome, on
the other hand, is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that causes the
brain to shrink (atrophy) and die. It causes about 70% of dementia (a decline in proper thinking, social and behavioral skill and the ability to function independently as an
adult).
Common symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease include mood swing,
discouragement, disorientation, difficulty in remembering recent events,
self-neglect, and other behavioral issues. It most popular cases, it is one of
the diseases that make some aged people behave like children and lack the
consciousness to be independent as adult.
According to the research, changes in the retina reflects
diseases processes, including the development of Alzheimer’s disease, in the
brain since the retina is connected to the brain. Medical autopsies have found
Beta-amyloids in the retinas of those who died of Alzheimer’s disease.
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I24News Reports that the research was conducted by Dr. Keren
Wood of the Samson Assuta Ashdod Hospital in Ashdod and Ben Gurion University
of the Negev, and Idit Maharshak of Wolfson Medical Center in Holon and Sackler
Medical School at Tel Aviv University, and Yosef Koronyo and Maya Koranyo-Hamaoui
from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, USA.
In the research, patients with Alzheimer’s disease and
healthy individuals (control) were asked to swallow turmeric. Turmeric is a deep
yellow spice which can attach to beta-amyloid plaques.
A few days later, the retina was examined. Test result showed that the yellow turmeric could bind to the retinal cells of Alzheimer’s patients but could not bind to the healthy individuals used as control for the research.
This research is a great breakthrough in medicine and may
serve as one of the simplest means for early detection of Alzhimer’s disease and related
syndromes.
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