Glaucoma Is Attacking The US Population

Glaucoma Is Attacking The US Population.
The changing makeup of the US populace is expected to actress to an increase in cases of glaucoma, the leading cause of vision ruin in the country, experts say. A number of demographic and health trends have increased the numeral of Americans who fall into the major risk groups for glaucoma. These trends include: the aging of America, increase in the black and Hispanic populations, the ongoing obesity epidemic.

And as more people become at risk, steady eye exams become increasingly important, eye experts say. Early detection of glaucoma is leading to preserving a person's sight, but eye exams are the only way to catch the complaint before serious damage is done to vision. "The big thing about glaucoma is that it doesn't have any signs or symptoms," said Dr Mildred Olivier of the Midwest Glaucoma Center in Hoffman Estates, Ill, and a embark on fellow of Prevent Blindness America.

And "By the time someone says, 'Gosh, I have a problem,' they are in the end stages of glaucoma," Olivier said. "It's already captivated most of their sight away. That's why we title glaucoma 'the sneak thief of sight.'"

Glaucoma currently affects more than 4 million Americans, although only half have been diagnosed, according to the Glaucoma Research Foundation. It's cited as the cause of 9 to 12 percent of all cases of blindness in the United States, with about 120000 forebears blinded by the disease.

Glaucoma is most often caused by an broaden in the routine fluid pressure inside the eye, according to the US National Eye Institute. The added lean on damages the optic nerve, the bundle of more than a million nerve fibers that shoot signals from the eye to the brain. In most cases, people first notice that they have glaucoma when they begin to mislay their peripheral vision.

By then, it's too late to save much of their eyesight. "Glaucoma is the calculate one cause of irreversible but avoidable blindness," said Dr Louis B Cantor, chairman and professor of ophthalmology at the Indiana University School of Medicine and foreman of the glaucoma service at the Eugene and Marilyn Glick Eye Institute in Indianapolis. "By the fix it's noticeable, 70 to 90 percent of dream has been lost," he said. "Once it's gone, it's gone. There's no retrieving scheme lost to glaucoma".

The most common risk factor for glaucoma is simply surviving. "Glaucoma is a c murrain of aging," Cantor said. "The risk of developing glaucoma goes up considerably with aging". As the natives of the United States ages, the number of glaucoma cases will logically increase. As Olivier said, "We're just going to have more people who are older and living longer, so we'll have more glaucoma".

However, kin who are black or Hispanic also have increased risk for developing glaucoma. Demographically, both groups are growing in the United States, notably Hispanics. As their numbers increase, so, too, will the quantity of glaucoma.

Glaucoma already is the leading cause of blindness among black Americans and is five times more proverbial in blacks than whites, according to US government data. "Not only do African-Americans get more glaucoma, they get it younger and it's more intransigent to treatment," Cantor said.

More recent research has found that Hispanics develop glaucoma at about the same reproach as blacks, according to the Glaucoma Research Foundation. Glaucoma rates go up dramatically for older Hispanics. "Once they get to about life-span 60, the incidence of glaucoma starts to go up," Olivier said. "We don't be aware why".

To a lesser extent, medical experts also believe that the obesity plague will contribute to a rise in glaucoma cases. People with diabetes are twice as likely to develop glaucoma as occupy without diabetes, although the reasons for that are not clear, according to the foundation.

What is clear, though, is that anyone in a risk group should have commonplace eye examinations. The National Eye Institute recommends dilated eye exams at least every two years for consumers at increased risk for glaucoma. "It's very important to get hourly eye exams," Cantor said. "Most of us go to the dentist every six months but get our vision checked every 10 years. Which would you rather lose, your see or your teeth?"

But vision loss need not be a given. Medicines and surgeries nearby today can slow down the progression of glaucoma. "Vision loss is preventable," Cantor said. "Many colonize with glaucoma can enjoy vision for the rest of their lives if the affliction is detected early and treated promptly".

But the key, of course, is finding it early. "A lot of mobile vulgus don't know that the treatments we have for glaucoma are very good," Olivier said. "Just because you have glaucoma, that doesn't seedy it's going to blind you best vito. But we have to catch it early".