Can an Eye Exam Predict Future Cardiovascular Problems?
New
research from the Hypertension journal maintains that your eyes may be
the windows to your heart, quite literally. In fact, by simply looking
at your eyes, the researchers can predict if you’ll be suffering from
hypertension or have other cardiovascular problems years after. Scroll
below to learn more about this research.
Heart
disease and cardiovascular issues are on the rise, and there’s a lot we
don’t know about it, still. One major issue is that of early diagnosis
and prevention, with medical professionals still lacking the tools that
could let them select the individuals at high risk of cardiovascular
disease, with many unexplained cases of heart attack and stroke slipping
through the cracks each year.
In
search of quick and non-invasive methods that could help predict
cardiovascular issues, scientists turned to our eyes, which they believe
may tell us more about our hearts than we’d expect. Previous research
has established that retinal alterations in adults can predict
hypertension in adults and even in children.
In fact, a Swiss pediatric study found
that children as young as 6 years old exhibit changes in the blood
supply to the eyes that points to the earliest signs of blood pressure
alterations. These previous studies prompted a large scale project in the UK looking at retinal changes in 55,000 middle-aged and senior adults.
To do so, 3.5 million images of the
blood vessels in the eyes were taken and then analyzed. The study found
that the smallest capillaries located in the back of the eye were
affected by hypertension and artery stiffness. None of these changes
affected the patients’ vision, but they were a reflection of the
cardiovascular health of each patient.
This
way, just a quick look at a person’s eye may show a medical
professional how likely the patient is to have a heart event or any
other cardiovascular issue, making this eye exam a useful diagnostic
tool. The next step in the study is to put the theory and observations
to the test and see how well the recorded retinal changes will predict
the likelihood of a heart event in the next 10 years.
Given
that cardiovascular disease in one of the greatest health threats of
the present, a retinal exam like this may soon become a useful tool for
managing and preventing heart conditions and hypertension.