Glowing Lenses Prevent Diabetic-Related Blindness

Apr-24-18 Innovative glowing contact lenses could help prevent diabetic blindness.

People suffering from diabetes can lose their vision when the disease damages the blood vessels in the eye and reduces the flow of blood to the retinal nerve cells, starving them of oxygen. To help prevent this condition, called diabetic retinopathy, the team from Caltech has developed contact lenses embedded with vials of the glowing, radioactive hydrogen gas tritium. When the patient closes their eyes to sleep, the glow from the tritium keeps the eye’s rod cells from activating, which in turn lessens the cell activity and reduces the consumption of oxygen by up 90 percent.

Since research has shown that most of the damage caused by diabetic retinopathy happens at night, due to the rod cells’ oxygen use, the glowing contacts could help prevent damage by the disease.

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[NEWATLAS.COM]
[CALTECH.EDU]

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