Can bad eating habits really damage our vision? Poor diet not only increases our risk of developing harmful conditions such as obesity and cardiovascular diseases, it can cause diabetes. This may in turn lead to Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) where tiny blood vessels form in our eyes and cause other serious vascular and neurological damage that reduces the nerve cells’ ability to transmit images to the brain. Symptoms of DR include blurred or distorted vision and hemorrhages resembling dark clouds. While temporary blindness caused by acute hemorrhaging can be surgically treated, if sufferers’ retinas are destroyed, their vision will be lost forever. In addition, 90% diabetics will eventually lead to DR. Our world is currently suffering from a massive diabetes epidemic resulting from increased life expectancy, urbanization, changing lifestyles and unhealthy eating habits. It is estimated that 5,000,000 of the world’s 347,000,000 diabetics (1) - around 5% of all blind people - suffer from blindness-related DR. Worryingly, more and more young people in Macau are joining the 1 in 14 people who are diabetic and the condition has now become one of the top 5 leading causes of death (2). Source: (1) World Health Organization (2) Macao Daily News https://orbis.org/news/entry/MO-AFS2014-Eng
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 13:28:06 +0000
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