Diabetic retinopathy is a condition that affects the retina and is a consequence of diabetes mellitus.

Diabetes is a disease of carbohydrate metabolism characterized by high levels of blood sugar. When this condition is maintained over time, changes occur in blood vessels throughout the body, and retinal blood vessels do not escape these changes. Here the consequences will be a significant decrease in vision. This is the reason why all diabetic should go regularly to his ophthalmologist, but also important and as far as possible, go to the same ophthalmologist so that he can recognize the slightest change. Diabetic retinopathy is a disease of the eye that contains the highest risk of blindness.

The changes in blood vessels of the retina caused by diabetes rise to the closure of vessels, which results in the lack of nutritional intake and oxygen to the cells of the retina. On the other hand, changes that occur in the vessels also alter its permeability, allowing leakage of fluid into adjacent tissues.

Diabetic retinopathy can be: nonproliferative and proliferative.

In the first of these vascular changes affect only the retina.

In proliferative diabetic retinopathy there is the formation of new vessels (neoformation) but they can spread from the retina into the vitreous body. This neoformation may also cause retinal detachment. Read the rest of this entry »

We know that quitting the approaches are many, and specialized clinics are just one of them. Many of the solutions involve performing simple procedures that act upon your subconscious to help your willpower to say no to cigarettes. The exercise is on the list.

Science has shown that exercise helps you stop smoking, but this time a study by the University of Exeter in the journal Addiction can yield new clues corroborating the influence that exercise has on our subconscious.

The research worked with a group of volunteer’s smokers, who were asked to not smoke for 15 hours before the experiment. Participants were shown neutral images before making fifteen minutes of exercise, and after that they returned to display images, this time some related to situations associated with smoking.

Measuring eye movements of participants, the researchers note has been the focus if the images associated with smoking caused more interest in other pictures volunteers. Read the rest of this entry »