Researchers have identified an acceleration of ocular aging in people suffering from chronic stress.
We know it, the stress is the source of many other small physical glitches. Researchers at the University of California have just added one to the list. Indeed, work carried out on rodents has revealed that chronic stress accelerates the destruction of ocular cells.
Vision loss and stress are linked
It’s in the magazine Aging Cells that the work of researchers from the University of California has been published. The latter studied the effects of high stress on the vision of rodents. The aim was in particular to subject them to a slight increase in eye pressure, which is one of the symptoms linked to stress.
The scientists detected that in the youngest subjects, the optic nerve remained in good condition, but that the older the subjects, the more it was damaged in the subjects subjected to greater stress.
Similar to glaucoma
According to the researchers, the loss of axons (the nerve tissue of eye cells) observed in the most stressed subjects is similar to what occurs in patients with glaucoma. Also, the aging of ocular cells induced by stress can ultimately promote the appearance of glaucoma. Remember that this pathology is the second cause of blindness in France.
Treat the causes of stress
For the researchers, this discovery is a major advance in the prevention of vision loss in stressed patients: “In addition to measuring vision decline and some structural changes due to stress and potential treatment, we can now measure the epigenetic age of retinal tissue and use it to find the optimal strategy to prevent vision loss with the aging. » Specify the study.
The establishment of a treatment protocol that primarily reduce stress and its symptoms might therefore prove to be an effective strategy in the fight once morest vision loss in some patients.
