Celebrities With Macular Degeneration or Stargardt’s Disease

Celebrities With Macular Degeneration or Stargardt’s Disease. Macular degeneration is an eye condition, usually affecting older adults, that leads to vision loss. It is prevalent around the world with as many as 11 million Americans estimated to have some form of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). Worldwide, an estimated 196 million people will have AMD five years from now or by the year 2020.

Celebrities with macular degeneration include the following:

Continue reading “Celebrities With Macular Degeneration or Stargardt’s Disease”

Celebrities With Glaucoma & the New Zioptan Drug

What do soul musician Ray Charles, astronaut John Glenn, tenor Andrea Bocelli, Canadian visual artist Tony Max, guitarist Jose Feliciano, and over other 60.5 million people in the world have in common?

Glaucoma. The second leading cause of blindness globally after cataracts, it’s a common but deadly eye disease.

What’s particularly insidious about glaucoma is that it causes vision loss that’s progresses so slowly that by the time you notice it, it’s a bit too late—the disease is at an advanced stage. And even with treatment, 10 percent of sufferers still end up blind.

Continue reading “Celebrities With Glaucoma & the New Zioptan Drug”

Vitamin A Drug (Fenretinide) Can Prevent Blindness for Older People?

A drug based on Vitamin A, the vitamin found in carrots, shows promising results in preventing the loss of eye sight due to old age.

The drug Fenretinide was able to stop the advance of dry age-related macular degeneration during the preliminary clinical trial, researchers announced.

During the trial, almost 250 men and women with dry AMD took a Fenretinide pill a day or a placebo. Results show that in the highest dose, the drug has halted visual deterioration after a year.

Researcher Dr. Jason Slakter from New York University School of Medicine said there is no effective treatment to dry AMD in the present and that their study was not designed to give a final answer to AMD problems.

Continue reading “Vitamin A Drug (Fenretinide) Can Prevent Blindness for Older People?”