Low antioxidant status and high sunlight exposure = Retinal Degeneration

I don't know if the below is a true statement because I have never heard it before but it does highlight why even blue light is damaging to vision. Lesson: obtain sunnies with blue light filtering capacity. Take it as high risk that by the time you reach 70 there is a distinct possibility you have some degree of cataract formation and retinal degeneration. The key is to contain the progress of these conditions as much as possible. That can be done but even with the best of care some of us are going to need cataract surgery and may develop AMD. Genes! In particular, a diet specifically addressing the oxidative balance in your blood is very important.

Most importantly control cholesterol, I have seen enough research to indicate that high cholesterol, particularly the small LDL variant (vLDL), readily penetrates the Retinal Pigment Epithelium and thus sets off unwanted cascades of nasties.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081013171431.htm

... The eye is particularly vulnerable to the damaging effects of sunlight. Ultraviolet radiation is absorbed by the lens, but visible or “blue” light penetrates to the retina so allowing us to see. Protection against the harmful effects of blue light is provided by the antioxidant vitamins C and E, the carotenoids (lutein and zeaxanthin) which filter blue light, and zinc. --------

Lipofuscin And Aging

Lipofuscin is the deposition of waste products in the cell that are not degraded. The critical factor seems to be rate at which proteins and lipids are degraded by the various "house keeping" functions in the cell. In these days the emphasis on the dynamics of aging is typically excessive oxidation events and lipofuscin receives little attention. Lipofuscin is something that needs to be addressed because as lipofuscin deposits increase the cell becomes increasingly unable to do its job.

In the graphic below I have extracted a table from a very old study. It highlights the huge increase in lipofuscin aggregation with age. They used acetyl l carnitine has a therapeutic intervention and the results were quite good but only at very high dosages. Other and much more recent research has found that acetyl l carnitine can also play an important role in preventing Age Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). In those studies they created a compound called Phototrop, a combination of acetyl L carnitine, omega 3 fatty acids, and co-enzyme Q10.

Word of warning: you should always use alpha lipoic acid with ALC because ALC increases mitochondrial function and mitochondria are the key region where oxidants are formed.

The table below is from

Japan J Pharmacol, 38, 365-71(1988)

The Mysteries of Vision

One of the most misleading analogies in neuroscience is "eye is like a camera". It is nothing of the sort. The anatomy of the eye makes that plainly obvious. For example, look at the graphic above. The top most part is the Retinal Pigment Epithelium. It plays a vital role in re processing vitamin A, absorbing excessive light, providing nutrients for the photoreceptors, and eliminating waste from the retina. Some studies suggest that the failure of the RPE to process and remove waste products is a cardinal feature in Age Related Macular Degeneration. The photo-sensitive portion of the photoreceptors is directly underneath the RPE.

Here's the rub: light does not travel from the top but from the bottom of this graphic. For light to stimulate the photooreceptors it must travel through the ganglion cell layer right up to the tip of the photoreceptors near the RPE. Quite amazing that we see it at all and it explains why some bods refer to the retinal structure as being "back the front". Now find me a camera that works like that ... .

Over and above that consideration the brain also goes to tremendous lengths to process visual information. It has been estimated that up to 30% of all CNS tissue can be involved in visual processing. The signals from the retina first must travel to the lateral geniculate nucleus(LGN) a set of small nuclei in the thalamus, from there the journey continues to the back of the brain to the VI or striate cortex, which appears to involve rudimentary visual processing, and then must travel forwards again to the temporal lobe(for object identification) and the parietal cortex(for position in space determination). This is the simple explanation!

What is becoming intriguing in our the research into vision is the research indicating that when we see the world the image we have in our minds is the result of this visual processing that is combined with our visual memory storage. That is, to a certain extent at least, the world we see is contingent on what we have been seeing our whole lives. With this little introduction in mind, have a look at these interesting visual hallucinations.

Go to this link and then download the relevant files. Have fun!