Short course

People who are nearsighted may be nearly twice as likely to also develop glaucoma,a leading cause of blindness,according to a new study that summarises earlier research.

Written by Reuters

July 2, 2011 01:48 AM IST

4 min read

Nearsightedness linked to glaucoma

People who are nearsighted may be nearly twice as likely to also develop glaucoma,a leading cause of blindness,according to a new study that summarises earlier research.

A conclusion might be that persons with high myopia should have regular ophthalmic examinations, Dr Barbara Klein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison,who worked on one of the studies included in the new review,said. Glaucoma is a group of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve,causing gradual loss of vision. There are several treatments available but none of them can restore sight once its lost. The study,published in the journal Ophthalmology,focused on the link between nearsightedness and open-angle glaucoma,the most common form of the disease. Dr Nomdo Jansonius at the University Medical Center Groningen in the Netherlands and colleagues combined data from 11 previous studies that included tens of thousands of people,tracking who were nearsighted and had glaucoma. The researchers found that,overall,nearsighted people were about 90 per cent more likely to also develop open-angle glaucoma. Those with higher levels of myopia appeared to be at higher risk of glaucoma as well. The findings only show that nearsightedness and glaucoma often co-occur,not that one causes the other.

Study finds text messages help smokers quit

Smokers are twice as likely to quit when they get text messages urging them to stick to their goal of being smoke free compared with those who receive texts with no motivational messages,a British study has found. Experts say the txt2stop trial,which is the first such study to verify quit rates using biochemical testing,may offer a cheap and easy way to improve levels of health by increasing the number of people who give up smoking.

To scale up the txt2stop intervention for delivery at a national or international level would be technically easy, said Caroline Free of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine,who led the study and published it in The Lancet journal. She said the scheme may need some adaptation,translation into other languages,and local evaluation before it is used in other populations. The texting trial randomly allocated 5,800 smokers in Britain who wanted to quit to either the txt2stop program or to a control group who got non-motivational texts. The results showed that those in the txt2stop group were more than twice as likely to report biochemically-verified quitting than those in the control group,with success rates of 10.7 per cent and 4.9 per cent respectively.

8216;Lean gene8217; ups risk of heart disease and diabetes

Being slim may not always lead to a lower risk of heart disease and diabetes,scientists have said after they identified a gene linked both to having a lean body and to a higher risk of metabolic diseases. Researchers from Britains Medical Research Council Epidemiology Unit said that while a so-called lean gene was linked to having less body fat,it was also linked to an increased risk of heart disease and type 2 diabetes illnesses normally associated with being overweight.

When we found the effect of this gene,we were very intrigued, said Ruth Loos,whose study was published in Nature Genetics journal. Loos team examined the genetic code of more than 75,000 people to look for the genes that determine body fat percentage,and found strong evidence that a gene called IRS1 is linked with having less body fat.

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