UV radiation

Leave a comment Posted on March 17, 2017March 17, 2017 Skin conditions

You can Eat Your Way to Healthier Skin

As a child, what you try to put in your mouth invariably ends up on your skin. Well, as we grow up what we eat becomes more and more important to our long-term health. That includes our skin health – what we eat will be reflected in how our skin looks. For Dermatologists such as Dr. Jessica Wu, what a person eats is “as important as the products they apply to their skin.” So, what should we be eating then?

Stage 1: Removing the Bad Stuff

Several types of products are known to cause bad skin outbreaks including acne. The two main food-based culprits are sugar and dairy products. Dairy may be controversial to some because there are many experts who recommend yogurt for improving skin care by improving digestion with probiotics, but others disagree. Sugar is less controversial. We do need sugars; especially for brain function, but they need to be good sugars, such as those from fruits. Spiking insulin levels in the blood can cause acne reactions.

Stage 2: Build a Sustainable, Healthy Diet

By sustainable we are not talking about ecological, though that would be great too. No, many diets are fads, so what you need is something which is varied and balanced. It feels good, but it is also healthy for you at the same time. There are, therefore, a range of superfoods which are good for your insides, but also good for your skin. Here’s a few:

Fruits: The best of the best, fruits are full of vitamins and minerals, but also natural sugars. Go for strawberries most of all because their Vitamin C levels are even higher than oranges.

Meats: Go for fatty fish over any other kind of meat. Tuna, salmon, and mackerel are the best options as they are rich in Omega 3 fatty acids. They are fantastic also for repairing sun-damaged skin and wrinkles.

Vegetables: Plenty of options here. The best ones to go for include spinach, avocados, bell peppers, and tomatoes. However, surprisingly, one of the best of the best is the humble sweet potato. They are vitamin factories and are full of vitamin A, B1, B2, B3, B6, C, biotin, iron, and potassium. Quite a haul.

Don’t Forget What You Drink: Green tea is a proven powerhouse in promoting healthier, glowing skin. This is because it has antioxidants and anti-inflammatories like polyphenols. This antioxidant has also been shown to reduce damage from UV radiation.

Leave a comment Posted on August 13, 2016August 13, 2016 Patient Talk

Irreducible Complexity? – Evolution of the Human Eye

The evolution of the human eye

The human eye is an impressively complex organ, so much so that some argue the human eye is proof of the existence of a designer. This theory is often referred to as ‘Irreducible Complexity’. It is simply put, the idea that removing any one part from a single system of interacting parts renders the system useless. In this sense, removing a single gear from an engine, means the entire engine would cease to work.

Those arguing the theory of design or irreducible complexity feel that the eye’s intricacy is a solid example of this theory… however, Essilor have produced this video which takes a look at how the human eye could have evolved. Narrated by Science Communicator Alom Shaha, the video takes us through various components of the eye and how they are used by single celled organisms, sea creatures, birds, and humans – examples of the how the eye could develop incrementally.

It also discusses how best to protect our eyes from dangers that evolution hasn’t equipped us to deal with. There’s a plethora of dangers to the eye in the modern day, but luckily, there are ways to prevent damage to them!

UV Radiation

Exposure to UV light comes primarily from direct sunlight, however, we also receive UV exposure via reflections from glass buildings, water, the ground, and even the rear side of your glasses. The rays from this light can lead to premature aging of the eyes and cataracts. Preventing or limiting contact with UV light is simple enough, by wearing sunglasses (or clear lenses) with a UV filter front and back of the lenses.

Blue Violet Light

Modern day life often involves staring at screens all day, and often late at night, however this exposes us to Blue-Violet light which can be harmful to retinal cells and lead to premature aging of our eyes. LED and Sunlight are also potential sources of Blue-Violet light. The best way of preventing damage from these rays is to wear lenses that protect from Blue-Violet light, however be sure the lenses don’t filter out blue-turquoise light as this assists in a healthy sleep cycle!

Excessive Screen Use

Further relating to the potential damage from staring at screens all day, is another risk – CVS (Computer Vision Syndrome.) CVS is a side effect of staring at computer screens for too long. The constantly shifting change in focus and eye position can cause blurred vision, sore eyes, and headaches. The best way to prevent damage from eye strain or CVS is to take regular breaks from the screen. Blink often to keep eyes moist, and every 20 minutes look away from the screen for 20 seconds at an object 20 feet away. The best way to keep your vision 20/20!

Lifestyle

Diet and exercise play an integral part to your overall health, not just your eyes. Eating a balanced diet with various vitamins and nutrients will lower your risk of cataracts; ensure your blood pressure remains low to also reduce the chance of other complications. Eat healthily, get regular exercise, and have your eyes check every two years!

Leave a comment Posted on July 16, 2014 Patient Talk, Vision

Macular Degeneration – A users guide! Find out more about the most common cause of blindness in the developed world in an exclusive Q&A with Victoria O’Connor and Cathy Yelf.

Macular Degeneration

A few weeks ago PatientTalk.Org ran a short blog post looking at the impact of UV radiation on the eyes. In particular we looked at the risks and some of the issues surrounding macular degeneration the most common cause of blindness in the developed world.

So we are happy to share with you a recent interview we conducted which provides a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) guide to macular degeneration. While , perhaps, not quite all you need to know it gives a great overview of the condition. If you have any follow up questions feel free to add them to the comments box below and we will ask one of the experts we interviewed to respond.

PatientTalk.Org were pleased to interview Victoria O’Connor and Cathy Yelf to bring you this macular degeneration users guide. Ms Yelf is head of external relations at the Macular Society and looks after their patient information and medical research programmes. Ms O’Connor is the Eye Health Condition Manager at Boots Opticians.

PATIENTTALK.ORG Cathy the first question is, what is macular degeneration?

YELF Macular Degeneration is an eye condition which leads to the most common cause of blindness in the developed world/countries and it’s a condition of the retina of the back of the eye, the macular is a very small section of the retina, it’s about the size of a grain of rice and its actually responsible for most of our vision, for all the fine detail of what we see, most of our colour vision and all of our central vision. So if you lose your macular you cannot see faces, you can’t drive, you can’t read and at the end stage of the condition people have just a blank in the middle of their vision. So it’s a very serious, very deliberating and devastating condition for people if they are not getting the right kind of support and help.

PATIENTTALK.ORG And what the difference between wet and dry macular degeneration?

YELF Well yes your right there are two forms of age related macular degeneration. The first one is dry; most people have dry macular disease. And it’s called dry just because it’s not wet it doesn’t mean that your eyes are dry or anything and it’s really a very slow degeneration of the cells of the retina and the macular in particular so it becomes a little bit like a worn out carpet, its becomes a bit thread bare and the seeing parts of the cells of the eye the phot receptors of the eye gradually die off and people lose their vision .It’s quite a slow process over months and sometimes many years, And unfortunately there’s no way of stopping this progression at the moment, its untreatable. Wet macular disease effects fewer people but it’s a more aggressive faster acting disease and it’s called wet because its characterised by the growth of tiny abnormal blood vessels which grow into the macular and these leak and bleed and this leaking, bleeding and swelling of the macular eventually scars the macular and that robs people of their central vision, now that can happen quite quickly in the matter of days or week, fortunately there is a now treatment for wet macular degeneration which is injections of a drug into the eye which stops the developments of these abnormal blood vessels, but both of them often in the end lead to poor vision.

PATIENTTALK.ORG Victoria could you just talk a bit about what UV rays do to increase macular degeneration?

O’CONNOR So there’s been an increase in evidence over the number of years to suggest the true link between life time UV exposure and the development of macular degeneration as any one of us begins to age and actually, In fact the oral ib published a report called our future …….. reports and it estimates that over half a million people in the UK at the moment are suffering with partial sight lose or complete blindness as a results of cataracts or macular degeneration , and they too support the fact that there is growing evidence with the link with UV exposure and the risk of developing. I think UV exposure is a matter that is largely sort of clouded in many myths and many different misconceptions of how much and when were exposed, we know that up to 30-40% of UV exposure can happen on a day when the sky is very cloudy and many of us wander out and about certainly without sunglasses on and many of us even in spectacle lenses that don’t provide any great protection. So the real message were trying to drill home to people at the moment is about ensuring that people, number 1 are aware of how do I protect myself but also to ensure that people are aware that this about a life time worth of exposure rather than popping outside on the one sunny day we have.

PATIENTTALK.ORG Could you just go through how macular degeneration can be treated?

YELF Well there’s the wet form that can be treated but the other forms can’t. Would you like me to talk more about the injections?

O’CONNOR Well I think what we probably could say to Cathy’s point; the dry form is the most common form so we know that a significant of patients suffering will have the dry form. Clearly the risks of that is two folds, leaving an immediate risk of disturbance to vision it creates but obviously the other risk is that it then converts to the wet form which is even more severe. As Cathy said we can’t treat the dry form and that’s why the message about prevention and protection is so important, we also know with macular degeneration is that there are several risk factors that we just can’t control, so things like age, gender and sex but actually the elements we can control are absolutely the UV exposure and of course a little bit about dieting and nutrition as well.

YELF And smoking of course is the biggest factor.

PATIENTTALK.ORG And who gets MD, is it just age related or if you help pro long exposure to UV can you get it when you’re young?

O’CONNOR so as Cathy said there are several different risk factors so the principle risk factors would be smoking increases your risk, family history increases your risk, ageing is clearly the biggest risk factor, a diet that is lacking in anti-oxidants or generally lacking in good combination regularly of fruit and veg and clearly those who are exposed to UV over their lifetime are at an increased risk. It does tend to affect the majority of patients at the later stage of life, so certainly the over 60s but there has been cases reported younger then that as well.

PATIENTTALK.ORG And why has boots decided today to announce that they are going to include UV protection in their lenses?

O’CONNOR So I think UV is a topic that were all very well educated on as a general population in the UK, in relation to certain aspects so skin care for example, mums and dads daren’t let their kids out, even on a cloudy overcast day without popping some sun cream on . We know as women were very conditioned to buy moisturises, skin care even make up with an SPF built in. What we are less aware of though is that actually the eyes are up to ten times more sensitive to UV damage then the skin itself is and age related macular degeneration is clearly a huge concern at the moment but there are other conditions linked to exposure as well. So what we wanted to do first of all was top make UV protection really assessable to everybody , so actually if you don’t want to walk around in your sunny’s all year around, simply wearing a pair of spec with adequate protection can be a fantastic second option. What we also believed is that there is nobody in the UK who isn’t appropriate for having some UV protection whether you’re a child, adult, working age or in older life and so it was really important to us that whatever level of protection we introduced we could introduce it at a point that would be assessable to all and that’s why we are not charging extra for it, so it’s coming as standard on any pair of Boots lenses that our customers choose.

PATIENTTALK.ORG If they want some more information where can they go?

O’CONNOR We’ve got loads of information on boots.com, on out opticians website or if you pop into any Boots store they should be able some further detail.