Most of us notice a person’s eye color almost immediately when we meet them. A striking pair of eyes can make a deep impression, and what could be more striking than a pair of eyes that don’t match? In scientific terms, that’s heterochromia, a phenomenon fairly common in cats and dogs but much rarer in […]
Spotlight: Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Age-related macular degeneration is a leading cause of permanent vision loss for people over the age of fifty. Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the slow loss of central vision due to the deterioration of the macula, the part of the retina with the highest concentration of photoreceptor cells and the part that gives us our […]
Tips on Maintaining Healthy Eyesight
An underrated ingredient of a good quality of life is healthy eyesight. As many as one in six adults struggle with sight-threatening eye conditions and far more than that live with some level of vision loss as they get older. Age is a risk factor for many of the major causes of blindness, including glaucoma, […]
Good Practices for Safe Night Driving
The shorter days of winter inevitably lead to more night driving than in the other seasons. Those of us without perfect eyesight may find it a stressful adjustment each year. It can even be a dangerous one if we don’t take the dangers of night driving into consideration. We can make a big difference in […]
Autoimmune Diseases Can Affect Vision
Many autoimmune diseases can interfere with the health and function of the eyes. An autoimmune disease is a disorder that causes the immune system to attack healthy cells. If you or someone you love has an autoimmune disease, it’s important to be aware of these possible effects, so let’s take a closer look at a […]
Smoking Puts Eye Health at Risk
Smoking damages the entire body, and the eyes are no exception. The main health risk that tends to come to mind with a smoking habit is lung cancer, perhaps followed by oral health problems, but it doesn’t merely harm the parts of the body that come into direct contact with the smoke. Studies show that […]
Why Do We Have Different Eye Colors?
Melanin, the same compound that determines skin and hair color, is also responsible for different eye colors. Melanin helps to protect the eye by absorbing light (including some UV light) that hits the iris, which is the part of the eye that controls the amount of light that reaches the retina. How Rare Are Different […]
The History of Corrective Lenses
People have been using tools to help them see clearly since at least 60 A.D. Roman philosopher Seneca is recorded to have used a glass globe of water to magnify text, while Emperor Nero would use a magnifying emerald to see gladiator fights better. We no longer need to resort to using water bowls or […]
How Sleep and Vision Intersect
Sleep deprivation hits the body and mind a lot like alcohol, but how does it affect our eyes? Getting enough sleep is great for our overall health and our eye health alike. At the other end of things, we can improve the quality of our sleep if we are more careful about what we put […]
Caring for Our Eye Health As We Age
Our eyesight, among many other things, tends to change as we get older. For any serious changes, it’s critical to get an early diagnosis. Many sight-threatening conditions that are associated with advancing age are combatted best by being discovered in the early stages. That’s the biggest we encourage more frequent eye exams for older patients, […]