In Rare Cases Zika May Be Passed Through Tears or Sweat

At the Foundation Fighting Blindness where Louis Kreisberg is the CEO, the latest research into eye disease is supported in the hopes of finding cures. Other issues of interest to scientists are the causes of eye diseases, how they are contracted, and how their spread can be minimized or halted altogether.

In this vein it is of interest to investigate what illnesses can be contracted through contact with tears. The Zika virus has recently been in the news as an illness that is transferred through mosquitoes. But in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine there was a discussion of an unusual case of the death, in the United States, of a patient with Zika, and how a second patient may have caught the illness from contact with either the patient’s tears or sweat.

The person who died was a 73-year-old man who was the first known death in the US from Zika. He first began to show symptoms of the illness after returning to the US from a trip to Mexico, a place known to have Zika. The second person is a 38-year-old man who came to visit the first man in the hospital. He reported that while he was visiting the first man he had wiped away his tears and assisted the nurses to move him into a more comfortable position on the bed.

About a week after the first man died the second man developed water, red eyes, a common symptom of Zika. After testing for the virus, it was clear the man did, indeed, have Zika. Luckily he recovered with only mild symptoms developing.

The letter in the NEJM discusses two mysteries: Why did the first man die, since deaths from Zika are quite rare; and how did the second man contract the virus? The letter suggests that perhaps unusually high levels of Zika in the first man’s blood explained both the death and the possibility of infected sweat and/or tears.

New Research on the Effect of Internal Astigmatism

Chart courtesy of BruceBlaus

In those people who have myopia (are nearsighted), their lens does not compensate for growth of the eye, or other changes in the eye’s structure. That is the determination of a long-term follow-up study which appeared in the September issue of Optometry and Vision Science.

This study helps to clarify whether and/or how the lens, or other eye structures change as a response to focusing abnormalities, particularly abnormalities caused by the irregular shape of the eye, known as astigmatism.

The study, reported by the Foundation Fighting Blindness, where Louis Kreisberg is the CEO, examined 367 people with myopia over 14 years. During that time the subjects’ eye structures were carefully measured and assessed for focusing error. This data was compared to one-time measurements in a matched group of 204 subjects without myopia.

The researchers were looking for any changes in the “internal astigmatism” of the eye over time.

"Clarity of vision is determined by the precise shape of the eye and coordination of several optical components that must all be perfectly balanced to provide proper focus. A longstanding question is how the eye adapts and controls its shape to deliver correct focus as it grows from birth to adult dimensions," explained the editor-in-chief of Optometry and Vision Science, Michael Twa, OD, PhD.

Although the new study does not explain the sources of internal astigmatism, the data does not support the theory that the lens plays any active role in compensating for astigmatic defocus of the eye.

Research Links Eye Color with Rare Form of Cancer

Every year in the United States about 2,500 people are diagnosed with uveal melanoma, which arises

A Blue Human Iris: Photo courtesy of 8thstar at Enblish Wikipedia

from the pigment cells in the eyes which determine their color. Clinical data in the past pointed to a correlation between this disease and Caucasians and those with light eye color, but the genetic path for this phenomenon has not been studied previously.

A new study conducted by doctors from Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Perlmutter Cancer Center of the NYU School of Medicine, and reported by the Foundation Fighting Blindness with Louis Kreisberg, CEO, showed a strong association between genes connected to eye color and the onset of uveal melanoma.

"This is a very important discovery that will guide future research efforts to explore the interactions of these pigmentary genes with other genetic and environmental risk factors in cancers not linked to sun exposure, such as eye melanoma. This could provide a paradigm shift in the field. Our study suggests that in eye melanoma the pigmentation difference may play a direct cancer-driving role, not related to sunlight protection," says Mohamed Abdel-Rahman, MD, one of the scientists exploring the issue.

Gene Therapy Helps Sheep Overcome “Day Blindness”

The Foundation Fighting Blindness, where Louis Kreisberg is CEO, supports a blog called “Eye on the Cure,” which explores the latest research in retinal disease. Recently the blog discussed a new therapy which was tried on sheep suffering from achromatopsia, an illness that not only affects sheep but about 100,000 people each year, causing blindness in light conditions.

Sheep with the illness were treated by a research team led by Eyal Banin, MD, PhD of Hadassah Medical Center in Israel. University of Florida’s William Hauswirth, PhD supplied the gene-delivery system, the human-engineered adeno-associated virus, or AAV, which delivered the healthy gene to the sheep retinas.

Sheep with achromatopsia were given the virus loaded with the good gene. Whereas before the treatment they could not successfully navigate through a maze to find their flock, after the treatment they were successful.

The research results were published in the journal Molecular Therapy.

The below video shows the results of the therapy:

Louis Kreisberg and the Foundation Fighting Blindness

The Foundation Fighting Blindness, with CEO Louis Kreisberg, has taken on the urgent mission of supporting the research into the causes of blindness and its prevention, treatments and also cures.

On the list of causes of blindness are retinitis pigmentosa (RP), macular degeneration, Usher syndrome, and other diseases which cause the retina to degenerate.

Here are some facts about retinal degenerative diseases which can lead to blindness:

·       Blinding diseases affect people of all ages and races. Over ten million Americans suffer vision loss from these diseases.
·        Retinitis Pigmentosa and Usher syndrome are genetic diseases which are inherited and usually diagnosed during childhood or young adulthood.

•   RP is the cause of serious vision loss which leads to legal and/or total blindness.
•  Children who are born with Usher syndrome are born with varying degrees of deafness. They develop RP later.
•  Age related macular degeneration has inherited risks. It is characterized by increasing loss of central vision.
• The foremost cause of blindness in adults over 55 years old in the US is AMD.