improved eyesight Archives - Amazing Health Advances

Improving Vision with At-Home Brain Exercises

The AHA! Team — Fri, 09 Aug 2024 08:17:33 +0000

John Jeffay via Israel21c – RevitalVision offers a unique intervention for people with eyesight challenges, treating the brain where images are processed. Doctors told Amit Azulay again and again that she’d never be able to drive because of medical conditions affecting her eyesight. She proved them wrong — using a unique piece of software developed by a startup in Israel that has been clinically proven to improve vision. Despite suffering nystagmus (involuntary eye movements) and albinism, her eyesight became good enough to apply for a license (see her delighted response to the news here). Amit, aged 25, is one of many patients who say the online training exercises have literally changed their lives. RevitalVision offers a unique intervention for people with eyesight challenges. It doesn’t treat the eye. It treats the brain. The eye is the hardware, providing the best optical signal it can. But in many cases, the brain struggles to process that signal. That could be because of medical conditions including diabetes, glaucoma or AMD (age-related macular degeneration). It could be a cataract patient whose hardware has been upgraded (cloudy lenses replaced with clear ones) but whose software (the brain) hasn’t caught up. Or somebody who’s had laser surgery but now has blurry vision resulting from reduced contrast sensitivity and still has to wear glasses. Or somebody with “lazy eye” (amblyopia) whose brain sidelines signals from the eye that doesn’t work as well as the other. Or somebody who’s borderline for wearing glasses and would prefer not to. RevitalVision addresses all these problems, and more, with a structured program that trains the brain to better make sense of the blurry signals it receives. Screams of joy RevitalVision’s program typically involves three half-hour, at-home computer sessions per week for two or three months. Patients are trained via a dedicated app. The result, says Yair Yahav, the company’s CEO, is a measurable improvement in vision of 20% to 25%, equivalent to an extra two or more lines on a standard eye chart or, in many cases, the difference between a driving license and no license. “Some patients come to our premises in Modi’in [central Israel], where we have a team of optometrists,” he tells ISRAEL21c. “About once a week I hear screams of joy from a patient in another room who now has good enough vision to qualify for a driving license. We have people who are literally crying. “They’ve been told their whole life that there’s no way, forget it, you’ll never be able to drive. “Then they come to us and if they’re missing just one or two lines [on the eye chart], that’s the average, we tell them they have an 85% to 90% chance of success.” One patient testimonial is from a woman who couldn’t read the label on her medicine, or see well enough to sign a check. She now can. Another, a graduate student with congenital nystagmus, always had to sit at the front of the class to read the board. Now she can sit anywhere. “It’s really lifechanging for many, many people,” says Yahav. Image processing He explains the science behind what they do. “The quality of the image we see depends both on image capturing and image processing,” he says. “We don’t treat the lens of the eye; we treat the brain by enhancing its ability to process visual information, which results in significant vision improvement.” The brain training is based on a “Gabor patch,” which looks like a grid of blurry black and white stripes on a gray background. It was invented by Dennis Gabor, who was born in Hungary, fled the Holocaust, invented holography, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 1971. His seemingly simple image perfectly matches the shape of the receptive fields of neurons, or nerve cells, in the part of the brain that processes visual information. Repeatedly stimulating those neurons improves their performance, just like physical exercise at the gym builds muscle, says Yahav. Shoring up weaknesses RevitalVision uses an algorithm to understand exactly where the weaknesses lie for each patient. In a typical on-screen exercise, the patient sees three images pop up, two of a Gabor patch and one of a blank. They have to click, using their computer’s mouse, to indicate which is which. The exercises get harder and harder, with the Gabor patch appearing less clear or further toward the edge of the patient’s field of vision. All the time, the algorithm is assessing responses and adjusting the images it displays accordingly. “Our software maps the patient’s cortical deficits, neurons that do not respond well. Then the algorithm tailors specific stimulation to match those deficits,” says Yahav. “Once the patient is consistently answering correctly, the software knows that’s the exact threshold, the maximum vision of the patient in this exercise, and moves on to the next one. “We are training the neurons to be more responsive and restoring the basic mechanism of visual processing in the brain,” he says. FDA approved Yahav says RevitalVision has “the only regulated product approved by the FDA with clinical claims to improve vision for a variety of eye diseases and impairments.” Some products approved to treat amblyopia, he says, are not for those over the age of nine. RevitalVision builds on pre-Internet technology developed in Israel, which it acquired from another company. This technology was launched commercially two years ago as a web-based product available by direct purchase or through an eyecare specialist. So far, the company’s product has treated 15,000 patients. “We’ve raised $7 million so far and we’re raising another $6 million. Now we are scaling up,” says Yahav. The company received a grant from the Israel Innovation Authority during its product development stage, and is conducting trials at Shamir Medical Center associated with Tel Aviv University. It currently employs six people in Israel, six in India and one in the UK. The potential market is so huge that the biggest challenge right now is to spread the word, says Yahav. For more information, click here. To read the original article click here.

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4 UNEXPECTED Benefits of Eating Carrots

AHA Publisher — Wed, 08 Sep 2021 07:00:25 +0000

Lori Alton via NaturalHealth365 – Carrots have a well-deserved reputation as a healthy food that can benefit eyesight. These sweet, crunchy root vegetables are extraordinarily high in beta-carotene, the plant pigment responsible for their brilliant orange color. The body converts beta-carotene to vitamin A, which is essential for vision. And lutein – another plant pigment in carrots – actually reduces the risk of age-related macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in older Americans. While carrots’ most obvious health benefits center on protecting and enhancing vision, they do confer additional gifts – some of which may surprise you! For example, a recent Japanese study revealed that a carrot-based herbal medicine may help prevent a serious complication of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). And, that’s not all. For more intriguing benefits of carrots, keep reading. Here Is How Carrots Promote Healthy Weight and Improve the Gut Microbiome Carrots, botanically known as Daucus carota, mainly consist of water and carbohydrates. However, this doesn’t mean they lack nutritional value – carrots manage to sneak in quite a few valuable vitamins, minerals and nutrients as well. A 100-gram serving (two medium carrots) provides almost 3 grams of fiber, much of it in the form of the soluble fiber pectin. Along with carrots’ natural sweetness, this makes them a satisfying snack that may help prevent binge eating. In addition, insoluble fibers in carrots – including cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignins – help prevent constipation and keep the digestive system moving. But carrots’ main claim to digestive health is that they contain a powerful natural prebiotic known as arabinogalactan. Prebiotics improve the gut microbiome (the community of beneficial microorganisms in the digestive tract) by encouraging “friendly” bacteria – such as lactobacilli and bifidobacteria. Because the gut microbiome affects immunity, metabolism, and even mood, anything that supports its health is a big “plus.” But Wait, There Are More Benefits! Carrots Even Protect Against Heart Disease By contributing fiber to the diet, carrots help support cardiovascular health. In a scientific review published in Nutrients, researchers noted that adequate fiber intake consistently lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease and coronary heart disease. Dr. Somdat Mahabir – a nutrition and disease expert with the National Institutes of Health – agrees, stating that dietary fiber lowers harmful LDL cholesterol and reduces the risk for developing heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure. Fiber may also help to reduce levels of inflammatory molecules such as C-reactive protein. However, carrots’ soluble and insoluble fibers don’t get all the credit for supporting heart health. Carrots are a good source of the essential mineral potassium, which is vital for healthy blood pressure. They also contain vitamin K, which may help to protect against artery-clogging atherosclerosis. Reduce Your Cancer Risk With Carrots One of the most remarkable benefits of carrots is their potential to discourage cancer. Their antioxidant compounds – which include beta-carotene, alpha-carotene, lutein, lycopene, and polyacetylenes – can help to scavenge harmful free radicals and prevent the oxidative damage that may trigger cancer. In fact, one study showed that women with high levels of circulating carotenoids were at lower risk of developing breast cancer. (Carrots seem to be protective against cancers of the colon, prostate, and stomach as well). Although experts agree that a diet high in carrots and other antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables helps to prevent cancer, it is possible that carrots may eventually play a role in treating it. In a study published in the Journal of Medicinal Foods, scientists found that carrot juice extracts caused cell cycle arrest and apoptosis (or “cell suicide”) in leukemia cells. The impressed researchers concluded that carrots “may be an excellent source of bioactive chemicals for the treatment of leukemia.” Carrots May Help Prevent a Serious Complication of COPD COPD, which currently affects 16 million Americans, can cause severe difficulty in breathing. In addition, COPD can lead to sarcopenia, or muscle wasting and atrophy. While exercise is the only established treatment for COPD, sarcopenia impairs physical activity – causing further deterioration in lung function and leading to a downward spiral in health and quality of life. However, carrots may be able to come to the rescue. In a promising animal study conducted by researchers at Osaka City University and published in 2020 in the International Journal of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, the team found that a carrot-based Japanese herbal medicine known as “Ninjin’yoeito” helped to prevent muscle atrophy in mice exposed to cigarette smoke. Study leader Professor Kazuhisa Asai called the preparation a potential treatment for COPD-related sarcopenia in humans and expressed hope that the carrot medicine could help break the “vicious cycle of sarcopenia frailty.” And, while raw carrots are a healthy snack, cooked carrots may be even more beneficial – as their beta-carotene is easier for the body to absorb. Consuming some healthy fat along with carrots is also a good way to increase absorbability. Of course, don’t eat carrots if you are allergic to them. Experts report that allergy to birch and/or mugwort pollen may make a carrot allergy more likely. Don’t let the cartoonish orange color and everyday appearance of carrots blind you to their amazing benefits. When it comes to discouraging serious conditions such as obesity, heart disease, cancer, and sarcopenia, carrots appear to be “serious medicine.” Sources for this article include: ScienceDaily.com Healthline.com NIH.gov BrightFocus.org NewsinHealth.NIH.gov To read the original article click here.

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