Statistics do not do it Lie: After 65 years, most people will find it difficult to focus visually on close objects. You may have seen this among your friends and parents or even having experienced it yourself, holding books, magazines or your phone more distant from your face to try to develop words and images. Many of the affected people are starting to use reading glasses. But a new treatment could become available: eye drops.
This deterioration of vision is called presbyopia. It is not a disease but a natural physiological change caused by aging, in particular by the loss of elasticity and flexibility of the crystalline lens at the front of the eye, which alters the capacity of the eye to change the curvature of the objective to develop objects. This stiffening begins at the ripe age and tends to stabilize around 65 years old. For people with myopia, or myopia, which fight to see distant objects clearly, the appearance of presbyopia can first lead to an improved vision by compensating for their existing condition. For those who suffer from hiding or hyperopia, the effects of presbyopia are often present earlier than in the rest of the population.
Living with presbyopia can cause fatigue and headache, and in rare cases a double vision, but generally it is not something to fear. But correcting it can facilitate daily activities and help maintain a good quality of life. The classic correction means are reading glasses, although in some cases, people opt for eye surgery, ie laser refractive surgery to reshape the cornea to compensate for the loss of flexibility of the objective or intraocular surgery to replace the lens with a lens with a lens. The latter is often proposed when there is also a certain disorder in the goal (a cataract).
But recently, researchers have worked on eye drops which, in different ways, according to the active ingredient used, almost improve. Two types were approved by the Food and Drug Administration of the United States: one based on a substance called Acclidine, the other on the pilocarpine.
Pilocarpine is the star molecule, with several trials of new formulations in progress. It is a natural alkaloid that interacts with parts of the nervous system, which has the effect, in the eye, to indicate the miosis – the narrowing of the pupil diameter – and the contraction of the ciliary muscle, the muscle ring which controls the shape of the lens. The two combined effects improve the elasticity of the objective and the ability to focus on nearby objects.
A recent trial in Argentina has tested a pilocarpine eyes fall at different concentrations (1%, 2%, 3%) in combined diclofenac, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory that soothes the harmful effects of pilocarpine such as irritation and discomfort. (Pilocarpines eye drops approved by the FDA are 1.25%concentrated.)
In a two -year retrospective study of 766 people, an average of 55 years, the researchers found that the eye drops allowed the majority of patients to improve their vision. “Our most important result has shown rapid and supported improvements in the vision close to the three concentrations,” said the main researcher Giovanna Benozzi when researching the 43rd Congress of the European Cataract Society and refraction surgeons.
