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Science Technology

Retina Blood Vessels Predict Common Fatal Diseases 128

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the look-into-your-future dept.
An anonymous reader writes "LiveScience is reporting that Tien Wong, of the Center for Eye Research Australia at the University of Melbourne, is claiming that abnormalities in the blood vessels of the retina can be used to predict diabetes, hypertension, stroke, and heart disease. These results were the culmination of several large studies. This could go a long way towards advancing medicine in the developed world as these disorders are some of the most common causes of death, hospitalization, and disability."
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Retina Blood Vessels Predict Common Fatal Diseases More

Retina Blood Vessels Predict Common Fatal Diseases

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  • A diagnostic boon . . . (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ph33r th3 g(O)at ( 592622 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @03:43AM (#14644873)
    . . . with the potential to prolong many lives -- except that insurance companies will use the information to deny coverage, making it impossible for those identified to afford care.

    • Re:A diagnostic boon . . . (Score:4, Insightful)

      by MarkRose ( 820682 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @03:55AM (#14644903) Homepage
      Insurance is a gamble against yourself. It's always going to be in the favour of the insurance companies because they are private enterprises, created to make money. Everyone should realise that. Why should a private enterprise be forced to take on a losing proposition? That's not fair. Neither is life! Deal with it.

      The obviously better solution is a public health care system.

      • Insurance is a gamble against yourself. It's always going to be in the favour of the insurance companies because they are private enterprises, created to make money. Everyone should realise that.

        Many insurance companies actually don't make all that much money (compared to other businesses). Warren Buffett has a large amount of insurance companies under Berkshire Hathaway and their purpose isn't generally profit (though a few percent is nice) but for him it's basically an interest free loan called float. M

        • Many insurance companies actually don't make all that much money

          Well, they seem to be doing alright in Canada [www.cbc.ca].
          They respond to criticism of their earnings by stating that some insurance products are more profitable than others; overall though, profits look good [www.cbc.ca].

          The best thing a consumer can do is, as you said, shop around.
          Understand the 'benefits' you're paying for; if your auto policy covers you for 80% of your net lost income, can you survive on that? Does your life insurance/travel/medical cover
        • Insurance is for people who cant do statistics

      • Re:A diagnostic boon . . . (Score:4, Interesting)

        by RicktheBrick ( 588466 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @09:36AM (#14645484)
        What people want is not always best for them. I have a good example of that. I am retired military and the military always kept pressure on me to maintain my weight. My wife was not in the military and did not get this pressure. My wife died 6 years ago(she was overweight) and I am still in relatively good shape(I can run 6 miles/hr for an hour and still do at age 57). So even though I did not like the pressure put on me by the military I realize that I am better off than my departed wife. Sure there are examples the other way where people put up their best effort and still get sick. There has to be a way to put pressure on those who do not put up any effort to maintain their health so that those who do, do not have to pay for it with both the pain of exercise and high insurance premiums.
      • You forgot to add: "because they are private enterprises" with the government in their pockets. Which is why it's not a good thing, and NO ONE should have to "get over it".
      • That's not exactly true. In one way, insurance is a losing bet against yourself. But in other ways (especially medical insurance) it is a group cost-negotiating tool. My medical bills show me what the "normal" cost of treatment is, then show me what the "negotiated" cost is. These costs are often as much as a 40% discount.

        So if the average "losing" bet against yourself with insurance would cost you an extra 10% over your lifetime, once you factor in the 40% negotiated discount, insurance SAVES you money.

        Ins
      • Why should a private enterprise be forced to take on a losing proposition?

        Why shouldn't insurance companies take the same risks they have always taken? This new technology does nothing to increase the incidence of any disease, which would cost the insurance companies money. Predictive tools give people the chance to do preventative things, which actually lowers the insurance companies' risk without leaving anybody out in the cold. Everybody gains from it.

        Using this information to blacklist people lowers the
    • ... except that insurance companies will use the information to deny coverage, making it impossible for those identified to afford care.

      Only in the few remaining rather backwards countries that don't actually have proper socialised healthcare.
    • Something's wrong here. The diagnostic technique that has been in use for 10 years (at least - maybe more) is not news. Improvements in detection might be, but TFA claims the whole thing to be a great new discovery.

      • Something's wrong here. The diagnostic technique that has been in use for 10 years (at least - maybe more) is not news. Improvements in detection might be, but TFA claims the whole thing to be a great new discovery.

        Nothing is wrong here, they're just preparing to patent this technique.

    • The next big dot.com boom: contact lenses that fool the medical exam!

      Haven't any of you seen Gattaca ? :P

  • No, really... I'm not in poor health... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Cranky Weasel ( 946893 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @03:48AM (#14644886) Homepage
    ...I'm just on an eight day cocaine/speed/Red Bull bender.
    • Wuss. You just described last year for me. You know if you throw all three in a blender with a scoop of ice cream it makes a pretty cool shake. Especially if you toss in a tripple expresso. Forgetting what day it is doesn't mean you've worked too many alnighters, forgetting what year it is is generally the first warning sign.
      • Currently "enjoying" the comedown from a good weekend, i can assure you. ITS PAIN.

        alot of tweakers tend to either drop dead or go pschyo after being up for 7 days.
        • "Currently "enjoying" the comedown from a good weekend, i can assure you. ITS PAIN... alot of tweakers tend to either drop dead or go pschyo after being up for 7 days."

          Now, now... The original post was a joke, and so was the followup. Let's not get into a drug-based dick-sizing competition.

    • Re:No, really... I'm not in poor health... (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      put the red bull down and step away from the cooler sir

  • Opthamologists knew this already... (Score:5, Informative)

    by dudeX ( 78272 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @03:48AM (#14644887)
    When I first went to a good eye doctor in 2002, she told me that the retina can tell a lot about a person's general health. She claimed she saved several patients lives when she found cholestorol build up in the vessels of the eye.

    Nevertheless this is a good nonintrusive way to diagnose someone.

    • Re:Opthamologists knew this already... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by TubeSteak ( 669689 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @05:10AM (#14645040) Journal
      Same deal with my eye doctor. He took one look at my dad and asked "have you talked to your doctor about...".

      I've been seeing the same eye doctor for about as along as I can remember (since I was young) and they've had me marked down as a high-risk patient for a long time.

      I know my eye doctor is one of the top opthamologists in the state and it is a huge relief to know you're getting top notch medical care.

      P.S. For anyone trying to find a new eye doctor, take into consideration the # of old people the doctor sees. The more old people, the more eye & health problems the doctor sees and deals with. Just a suggestion.
    • I've also heard this before.
      But having it tested by a serious study is still better than relying on anecdotal evidence. So, thumbs up to the guys (and gals?) who organized that research :)

  • Iridology (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I know iridology is bunk, but I wonder if at least some aspects will aid in clinical diagnosis in the future. "Rings around the retina" indicating problems with the pancreas, ie diabetes, etc (I don't know what iridology believes, just making up stuff for example).

    It would be interesting to look back in 20 years and see if they got anything right, or if they were a bunch of loons afterall.

    I believe that the eye can show us much more than we currently think it can, it is just a matter of sorting through the

    • Re:Iridology (Score:2, Informative)

      by penthouseplayah ( 454492 )
      There is the Keyser-Fleischer ring (cupper deposits) that can be seen in the outer rim of the iris in Wilsons Disease (deficit in cupper metabolism). Although often times the ring is not seen after diagnosis has been made by blood tests. The disease is fatal unless treated, and also has a high rate of neurological deficits if treatment is initiated too late.

      • Re:Iridology (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Not all wilsons patients have the Keyser-Fleischer ring, it tends to only be visible when the copper build ups effect your neurological system. So make sure you get plenty of urine and blood tests before hand ;) The liver tends to give up and pump copper out your urine before hand.
    • Quackwatch [quackwatch.org]

  • Retina based biometric security and privacy. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Vellmont ( 569020 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @04:06AM (#14644925) Homepage
    If this is true, I sure as hell don't want my employer, or the government to have pictures of my retina to implement biometric security.
    • During routine eye exams, your retinas may be imaged and the image archived for comparison with future images, because CHANGES in the retina typically indicate the onset of a potentially-blinding condition (and some can be treated if caught early enough).

      While this is a good thing for your ocular (and general) health, presumably such info *could* be acquired and misused by a malicious gov't, by someone bent on beating a biometric ID system, etc.

  • this has been done for years!!! (Score:5, Informative)

    by tbird81 ( 946205 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @04:10AM (#14644932)
    Doctors have been looking at retinas for years! It's well known they're a (relatively) easy way to get a look at small blood vessels.

    Microhaemorrhages (bleeds) and aneurysms (a bulging section of a vessel) may be present due to hypertension in the vessels because of diabetic changes to the retinal vessels, or systemic hypertension. Having more blood vessels than usual indicates that the existing ones are not supplying enough oxygen, as will be the case in advanced diabetes. Changes in the macular (the part of the eye that sees most detail) can be apparent if the diabetes is causing problems with vision.

    Stroke, heart disease, hypertension and atheroscelerosis are all intimately linked anyway - people at risk of one are often at risk of others. And it's difficult to characterise the changes to a specific cause. But they're still an important thing to look at.

    Another time a doctor will look at the retina, is in an emergency situation where the is a blow to the head, they'll look for papilloedema (a swelling behind the retina due to increased pressure inside the skull). This also happens with other causes of high intracranial pressure, such as tumours.

    • That explains why doctors always look at a person's eyes. But what's up with the ears? A common conversation with a doctor goes:

      P says "I've got the runs"
      D says "Alright let me just have a look in your ears. Yup, you've got the runs."

      Do they all just have ear fetishes or something?
      • Maybe he's just screwing with you for wasting his time with the runs. :P
        • Honestly, in order to make sure that you can code a 99213, or maybe even a 99214, a doctor has to do a fairly complete exam and then document it. Cynicism aside, it is also a good idea to give a patient a general look over. When our 10-30 year old slashdotters come in the the doc for the runs, that's the only time I have a chance to notice that skin cancer on their cheek, high blood pressure, or whatever. I can also make sure I told you to quit smoking, even if it is just a total waste of time. With all
      • What the Doc is checking for is: if he can see all the way through, then Doc knows not to take what you tell him too seriously- if he can't see out the other side, well....

      • Why check ears? To see nasal infection/congestion (Score:4, Informative)

        by KWTm ( 808824 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @09:28AM (#14645463) Journal
        Well, checking the ears won't identify "the runs" (diarrhea), but I routinely check patients' ears if they give a history of cough, headache, pink eye, or other head/neck symptoms. This is to help identify nasal congestion, a common cause of head/neck problems. Fluid (normally) produced in the sinuses, middle ear (behind the eardrum, so it can't come out through the eardrum), and eyes (excessive amounts would be called "tears") all normally drain into nasal cavity. If your nose is plugged, then you'd get sinus fluid buildup causing sinus headache, ear fluid buildup causing plugged and sore ears, and failure to adequately lubricate the eyes causing irritation and possibly infection. Furthermore, if your nasal mucus is running down the back of your throat, the "post-nasal drip" can cause a cough that won't go away with cough medicine. But try a decongestant, and the cough medicines will magically start working.

        When I look in the ears, I can see whether there is fluid behind the eardrum, and tympanic bulging, which tells me that the eustachian tube (and therefore the nose) is plugged. If it is, then I can predict that the patient will probably have the sinus/eye/cough symptoms mentioned above. So the conversation would be more like:

        P: I've got a cough and a headache.
        D: Let me look in your ears. Yup, you've got a cough and headache.

        By the way, about half my patients don't believe me when I tell them about their nasal congestion, because there's no mucus running out the nostrils, and their nose is unplugged enough so that they can breathe ok. Doesn't mean the eustachian tube's not blocked.

      • IMO, that doesn't sound so bad...Certainly preferable to something like this:

        P says "I've got the runs"
        D says "Alright, drop your pants and bend over /*puts on latex gloves*/....

    • <sarcasm>But now it's patented and that makes it, well, better, you know.</sarcasm>
    • Doctors have been looking at retinas for years! It's well known they're a (relatively) easy way to get a look at small blood vessels.

      Well, that answers Col. O'Neill's question in "Window of Opportunity", "I ask you, what could possibly be in my eye that could explain all this?"
  • This is old news? I knew that I've had hypertension for a long time, and when I went to see a eye doctor, one of the first things she asked me when checking my eyes was that if I've gotten any medication for the hypertension or if I've discussed it with my doctor.
    • Take a look at drfuhrman.com [drfuhrman.com]. He has had many patients have their hypertension reversed and lose weight into the bargain through his diet plan, all while eating as much (of the right food) as they want. Nearly all patients stop previous medications as well. It's worked wonders for me, so check it out. One thing I would say is to take his advice about multivitamins seriously, otherwise you can end up deficient in vitamin B12 as well as a couple of others if you're not careful.
  • I've always wondered what was complicating just getting a blood test, analyzing it and telling you every imaginable thing about your physical condition. Viruses, markers indicating bone damage, infection, stressed liver/kidneys, metastacizing cancers, there should be chemical indications of all these things in a few mls of blood, shouldn't there?

    Is the complication that these markers don't exist in blood, or that we don't have the technology to pour some blood into a machine, thin it out onto a scanning su

    • I've always wondered what was complicating just getting a blood test, analyzing it and telling you every imaginable thing about your physical condition.

      For one thing, the tests are difficult to do. Many of the most interesting factors are peptide hormones and proteins, for which it is difficult to design tests. Microarray scanners, which look at an array of fluorescent dots that each detect a different molecule, should begin to make a dent in the problem, but the going will be slow. One difficulty is th

    • You raise a good point, but the problems are severalfold.

      First, you need to identify the disease you're looking for.
      Next, you go to the lab and spend lots and lots of time looking to develop a test that is both sensitive and specific for that disease.

      A couple of definitions:

      Specific - Only picks up that disease (in reality, a test with a low false positive rate)

      Sensitive - Able to detect that disease every time it's there (a low false negative rate)

      Take prostate cancer for example.

      In laymans terms many peop
      • A friend had testicular cancer, which caused elevated levels of some hormone more commonly associated with pregnancy. First time thru the mill, his paperwork got a little confused and they tried to send him to the maternity ward!

        Goes to show how a one-result-fits-many-possibilities test could go completely awry :)

    • That's sort of like getting a drop of water from the river, and wanting it to tell you everything about the surrounding land. Sure you will be able to determine things like whether the area is farmed, any chemical plants nearby, and probably things about general pollution and soil type. You can't tell that your neighbour just installed a swimming pool in their backyard.

      Blood can tell you an awful lot about what's happening in the blood. Something like a leukemia will be obvious when there are way too many

    • Quit looking for a blood test that answers all! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by KWTm ( 808824 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @11:06AM (#14645742) Journal

      I've always wondered what was complicating just getting a blood test, analyzing it and telling you every imaginable thing about your physical condition. Viruses, markers indicating bone damage, infection, stressed liver/kidneys, metastacizing cancers, there should be chemical indications of all these things in a few mls of blood, shouldn't there?

      Good grief. Sorry, you've pushed a button in me; I get this request from my patients all the frick'n time, so maybe if I answer this one, it will save a lot of doctors (and patients) some trouble.

      Why don't we just do a "blood test that checks for everything"? The short answer that "there is no such test", but then my patient asks for a CT scan or MRI scan, or wonders when we will be technologically advanced enough so that we can invent such a test. It will never happen. Here's why:

      Each test result is imperfect and must be interpreted in light of the clinical context. In other words, you have to know what you are looking for, or else you won't be able to tell what's normal or not normal. I view each test as being a somewhat inaccurate answer to a Yes/No question, e.g. "Is it Horrible Disease X?", but there is no test that tells you, "What disease is it?"

      Just casting a net far and wide, looking for "everything", will net you all sorts of useless false positives that will waste time, cause worry, and worst of all, result in further unnecessary testing that may be risky.

      There are two main reasons for this: test accuracy, and test relevance. Let me illustrate:

      Elderly men everywhere are demanding to have their Prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) blood levels checked, because it's not as embarrassing as having the doctor stick his finger up the bum to feel the prostate. Hey, you gotta check the PSA, because --what if you have cancer!!?? How can you be SURE that I don't have prostate cancer, doctor? (Answer: you probably do, and the prostate cancer will kill you in 135 years.) PSA testing is still controversial, and in fact the Canadian task force actually labeled PSA testing as harmful because then you need to surgically sample the prostate, leading to the risks associated with minor surgery.

      How about that? A test that's actually harmful, hmm? You'd think you could just ignore the test result if that were the case, but nooo... now there's a medicolegal obligation to follow through with prostate biopsy.

      On the other hand, if you carry a high risk for prostate cancer, then the PSA is a very useful test. If your father and his father and his father all had (clinically significant) prostate cancer, then I would definitely get you a PSA without you asking for it.

      There's a mathematical basis behind this, so let me illustrate.

      Suppose there's a Horrible Disease X that everyone is afraid of. Let's say it's HIV/AIDS, which some 1 million people have in the USA, but this applies to any other disease.

      Suppose I have a test that is 99% sensitive; that is, if you really do have Disease X, then only 1% of the time will the test erroneously say that you are okay. The test is also 99% specific; that is, if you DON'T have X, then only 1% of the time will the test erroneously say that you do have it.

      I need a volunteer from the USA population to try my Super Duper Get-Checked-In-Case-You-Have-X test. You there, with the Slashdot username "lifeisgreat", why don't we try it on you?

      Horrors! The test is positive! Life is not great, after all! What's the chance that you have Disease X? What's the probability that my Super Duper test, with 99% accuracy, is wrong?

      Think out your answer before reading on. You have just tested positive for one of those "every imaginable things" test that you were asking for. What will you do now? Call a doctor? Talk to family? Write a will? Will you ever live to have kids? Will you ever get frist psot on Slashdot again?

      The answer: there is les

      • Really, you should write for a popular medicine column. Your talents are wasted on Slashdot.
      • Goodness, my question was a technological one of whether there is a lack of physical data available in blood, and whether or not we have the technology available to analyse it if it's there.

        Asked another way, would it HELP or HURT you as a doctor if you could know the contents of a patient's blood down to molecular counts compared to population baselines.

        Your rant makes it sounds like you would rather no improvements ever be made in blood testing technology. Why exactly I'm still not sure, but it sounds li
        • You're still thinking in absolute terms. Everybody is different with different biochemistry variations. What may be normal for one person may be abnormal for another, be it blood pressure or something else. A highly conditioned athlete may have a very low rest blood pressure that would indicate some problems in a child, a senior, or someone with internal injuries. I think the good doctor's point is that a lot of the other tests that you would do in blood work are similarly context sensitive. And then again,
    • This is one of the ways that they are trying to put BB King's glucometer out of business. His requires a drop of blood. That's about a billion drops of blood and test strips each week in the US alone. Test strips cost about seventy-five cents each retail when bought by the hundred. If you could just shine some light through the skin or into the retina and see how much glucose was in the blood, you eliminate the need for test strips for millions. But there are just too many things in the blood besides
  • Does anybody have a good technique to take a picture of your own retina? What kind of setup would you need?

    • Re:How Do You Do It? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      A scalpel, a vial of eosin stain, a Bausch & Lomb microscope from eBay, and a fetish for pain.
    • Last time I had my retinas photographed, the flash used was so intense as to be painful. Lest you accidentally "overexpose" yourself (say, having to take many shots due to by missing or being out of focus--I don't think most people could accurately aim a camera at the back of their own eyes) I really recommend not trying this out at home.
    • I'd recommend checking out an ophthalmoscope - you can get a decent one for $150 - and figuring out a way of hooking up a small digital camera to the end through which the image is displayed. Admittedly, my knowledge about such things is more on the medical end of things, and way less on the technical, but I think that setting up the hardware itself would not be that difficult - the harder part would be aiming the light into your own eye properly. As a medical student and owner of an ophthalmoscope mysel
    • Is this the sort of thing that could be integrated with biometric retinal scanners? Now that *would* be a use of biometrics I could agree with. Walk up to your office/workshop/underground lair, get your iris scanned, and "<BEEP> Good afternoon, Gordonjcp. Incidentally you might want to get that cholesterol level looked at."

      Just a thought...
    • What kind of setup would you need?

      The quality's not good, but you can get interesting pics from a Digital Blue QX5 microscope held to your eye. With the 10x lens, and using the microsope hand held, you can see a fair bit of the inside of your eye.
    • My employer (medical field) uses the Optos system [optos.com] to capture a wide angle view of the retina. This allows almost a 200 degree view, where normal dilation resuts in about a 30 degre view. If you ask, they will email you copies in either high resolution JPEG or DICOM format. The DICOM format allows you to see the same 'layers' that the doctor sees using some free tools [online.fr]. These images are really quite neat. We even have had a few artists that wanted copies to use as base for new works. They ususally only c
  • Beauty is in the eye of the beholder... If you're driving, don't stare at beauties on the road. If there is beauty in a drivers eye, he might suffer from daim bramage or something.
  • Abnormalities in the blood vessels of the eye caused by hypertension and diabetes are kind of common knowledge. Often people with hypertension have broken blood vessels in the eye. I am kind of surprised that they can diagnose heart disease from the blood vessels, though. It's amazing how everything in the body is interconnected in some way.

  • Chinese Medicine (Score:4, Informative)

    by LuYu ( 519260 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @05:22AM (#14645065) Homepage Journal

    This is text book Chinese medicine. Looking for signs of these things in the face and eyes has a history of about 1500 to 2000 years. I guess it is good that Western medicine has finally come around, but this is far from amazing.

    • Re:Chinese Medicine (Score:4, Insightful)

      by rolfwind ( 528248 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @06:35AM (#14645208)
      This is text book Chinese medicine. Looking for signs of these things in the face and eyes has a history of about 1500 to 2000 years. I guess it is good that Western medicine has finally come around, but this is far from amazing.


      I agree to a point - but Chinese medicine is overrated. Many more affluent Chinese turn to "Western-style" medicine these days when they have something serious.

      For every 1 thing they had correct, there were at least 100 things that were useless or worse. That's the problem with something based in tradition without the scientific method to question it: "wisdom" get passed down through the generations, most of it never questioned.

      As a western corollary: just think about the mountains of homebrew cures everybody suggests for a hangover and then go over how many actually work.

      • Re:Chinese Medicine (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Please explain why during the SARS scare all those who took Chinese Medicine survived but those who took western medicine either died or suffered a lot before making a recovery.

        No, I am not saying Chinese Medicine is the answer for everything but western medicine certainly does not hold the best key to fighting disease. If anything, it is western medicine that is overrated.

        • lease explain why during the SARS scare all those who took Chinese Medicine survived but those who took western medicine either died or suffered a lot before making a recovery.

          Link? References?

          I'm skeptical, as that's a very big claim - "all" who took Chinese medicine. I doubt all the practictioners of Chinese Medicine would even take/prescribe the same herbs, much less that something like this won't make the news. Hell, China would be trumpeting it as propaganda (and rightly so).

  • The best way to keep your cholestorol low is to go vegan and of course be a healthy vegan. My cholestorol is 146. I am not even close to at risk for any of the well-understood health issue. Better yet, in addition to going vegan, go raw and get really healthy.
    • Hey, I prefer to eat vegan. Sauteed, maybe with a cream sauce. It's easy to catch them if lay some alfalfa and wheat germ out on a sample tray at your local health food co-op.
    • My cholestorol is 101, and the hubby's is under 100. (Yes, the COMBINED level). And we're both carnivores.
    • Thats quite a high cholesterol level for someone who eats nothing containing it. As for my self, I eat whatever I want, which includes lots of butter, meat, and fatty foods. I just make sure to be active and excercise. My cholesterol is under 100.
    • you mean that's a good way to become b12 deficient, or are you popping pills of b12 that came from an animal? I eat steak and bacon, my count is 80. Raw vegatables open you up to all kinds of neat parasite and fungal diseases.

  • oriental medicine (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Kell_pt ( 789485 )
    My regular doctor for the last 8 years or so has training in analysing the retina (oriental practices, she also does acupunture). Besides (and before) the usual medicine, she always performs a visual exam that lasts from 5 to 10 minutes, comparing the retina on both eyes to a couple eye-charts. She usually detects signs of problems that way, and then proceeds to treating them with a combination of either standard or homeopatic pharmaceuticals.

    This article seems to support the idea that there is scientific
  • I heard that you could do the same thing (and more) with the bumps on your head.
  • If you want to look for arterial disease, then looking at arteries is a good idea. The ones in the retina are the easiest to see. All med students are trained in ophthalmoscopy, and will be able to detect retinal changes associated with long term diease. The studies use computers to scan digital photographs to actually measure arterial diameters and other predictive signs. The studies are based on these photographs. Using this quantitative approach is fairly new, and the long term study results are just com
  • we can reduce health costs, even for unisured by using the same biometric ID sensor [retina scan IS in use already] but fork the data stream to the medical analyser software along with the ID processing.

    By the time you exit the ID station, an annucniator can tell you your fate as accurately as a doctor or a fortuneteller:

    Robotic Male Voice: "Good morning Abdulla Massoud You are on our no-fly list because we suspect you want to blow yourself up and take a few others with you." followed immediately by

  • It's already being done... (Score:3, Informative)

    by S.O.B. ( 136083 ) on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:00AM (#14645554)
    For the past couple of years my eye doctor has used a device called "Optomap" (http://www.optomap.com/ [optomap.com]) to capture a digital image of my retina. The first time he used it he identified that I had hypertension, which I had been diagnosed with a number of years before, and can even track it's progress. Had this device been in use before I was diagnosed my hypertension might have been caught earlier.

  • I AM a retina doctor ... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 05, 2006 @10:56AM (#14645707)
    ... and a long time lurker, now turned anonymous coward :)

    Anyways, as many others have noted, this concept is really not new at all. The fact that examining the retina can clue us in to systemic disease has been around for over 100 years. The novelty here, I believe, is that the researchers have prospectively (I'm guessing from the context of the article) examined digital fundus photographs, and found that they can be used predictively in determining the risk of diabetes/hypertension etc... (essentially, diseases that preferentially affect the small vessels in the body). But even this doesn't seem that novel, I can personally recall reading an article about 5 years ago which specifically looked at examining digital photographs to screen for diabetic retinopathy.

    The other interesting part of the article has to do with their work on setting up a web-based digital review center. While the idea sounds great, this type of telemedicine runs into a lot of logistical problems, a sample of which would include:

    -Limited sensitivity - ocular manifestations of systemic disease are not always present, and certainly are often NOT present early in the disease course. If we give high-risk individuals a "false negative" reading, are we really enhancing their overall health?

    -Medical liability - who would be reading these? A trained physician? Licensed where? I am trained in the US, and fully licensed to practice, yet I can't even cross a state border and perform an exam without breaking the law.

    -How are the digital images supposed to be obtained? Digital funduscopic cameras are pretty expensive.

    -Practicality -- let's see, I could either buy a digital imaging system, and submit a photo to a website for review, or I could just check this patient's blood pressure, in the office (or check a blood sugar, or cholesterol level, etc...). These tests are actually much more definitive (we check patient's blood pressures in the office, before a retinal exam!), than an eye exam.

        Ideally, what would probably be more effective would be something like a software package that can automatically analyze these images (with the proper legal disclaimers, of course), bundled with a portable digital imaging system. These would be wonderful for something like large scale screenings of under-served, high-risk populations -- an indian reservation, for instance. Then, you could identify especially high risk individuals, and recommend follow-up with either an ophthalmologist or internist. Though, really, everyone should probably at least have an occasional screening physical by a real doctor (ok, ok, enough soap-boxing).
  • We used to try to 'predict' what number someone was thinking of by looking into their eyes and looking at the blood vessels. Quite funny back then, but this is a far more serious application. I'm a little curious as to exactly how this works, and the article is just a wee bit shy on that.
    • Related oddity: if I get the light bouncing around my eyes just right, I can see my own retina -- blood vessels, optic nerve, and all, presumably as reflected by the backside of the lens. Interesting to look at.

      When I was a kid (and sometimes to this day :) I'd amuse myself watching the strings of junk cells that float around inside everyone's eyes, and got fairly good at making them move in any desired direction. I could even see the nucleus in some of 'em. One string was Y-shaped, and at age 50 is still i
  • Ophthalmologists have known this for years, and are trained to detect these symptoms.
  • Man: "No, listen."
    Woman: "No, no, I won't hear it."
    Man: "Look into my eyes. I'm dying."
    Woman: "No! It's diabetes, I can see it!"
  • This opens up a whole slew of new lines to use on the date you want to get out of!

    "When I look into your eyes, I see Diabetes."
  • I went to a terrific optometrist named Belinda in Washington State, Kennewick. She took images of my inner eye, and told me I was healthy, free of arterial problems, heart disease, and so forth just by looking at my images. She pinpointed where the genetic flaws were that caused my grandfather to go blind too.
    There's nothing quite as surreal as looking into pictures of your own eye...
  • Optometrists have been spotting early signs of diabetes, multiple sclerosis, cancer, hypertension, high cholesterol, stroke, heart disease, herpes simplex and thyroid problems for decades. Still, it's nice that this system allows for more precise quantification of the illness, and it's nice that it can be done without an optometrist on hand, but the fact that such things can be diagnosed by examining the retina is not news.
  • Since omega 3 fatty acids are a significant structural component of the retina, would a long term diet rich in omega 3 thwart such iridology tests?

  • So much of medicine is plumbing and pipes. If pipes are clogged in one area of the body (the retinas), pipes are going to be clogged in another area (the heart, or the brain). This isn't a revolutionary concept.

    What would be revolutionary is using image recognition algorithms to look for specific disease patterns in retinal vasculature. It is then a simple process of imaging the retinas and automate the image processing. That would give you a list of risk factors, and be able to direct additional scree

  • My father - now 81 years old was a physician and did retinal exams as part of every physical. He said it was a good way to get a peek at vascular health.
    The eye has blood vessels in front of the retina that the brain has to interpolate out of the image - rather puts a wrench in the ID claim that the eye is an example of "intelligent" design - similar to having power supply wires in between the lens and sensor of a digital camera.
    Good doctors also will take your blood pressure on both sides and use seve
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    We are not exactly dealing with The New England Journal of Medicine here. The first thing you see on the site is an invitation to visit the Li

  • http://raffinorgangrind.textamerica.com/?r=4180027 [textamerica.com] This is an example of what you will see with a retinal exam as posted to TextAmerica raffinorgangrind. This was covered by my insurance, including the initial exam as refered by my primary care physician, then seen by my eye doctor, and further refered to a retinal specialist to determine if any further damanged to my vision had occurred. I will have six month followups, my diabetes is under control with oral meds, and I check my blood sugar every day.
  • My optometrist examined me a couple years ago and asked if I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or great stress. I had just been checked by my medical physician and didn't have the first two. I'm a pretty serious runner. But my JOB--was off the charts, really stressful. The next year, same eye doc, same test. I had quit the job. He didn't mention any vascular problems. I asked him. He said no, don't see anything like that.

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