Something In Your Eyes May Reveal If You're At Risk of Early Death, Study Shows (sciencealert.com) 32
A quick and pain-free scan of the human eyeball could one day help doctors identify "fast agers," who are at greater risk of early mortality. ScienceAlert reports: A machine learning model has now been taught to predict a person's years of life simply by looking at their retina, which is the tissue at the back of the eye. The algorithm is so accurate, it could predict the age of nearly 47,000 middle-aged and elderly adults in the United Kingdom within a bracket of 3.5 years. Just over a decade after these retinas were scanned, 1,871 individuals had died, and those who had older-looking retinas were more likely to fall in this group.
For instance, if the algorithm predicted a person's retina was a year older than their actual age, their risk of death from any cause in the next 11 years went up by 2 percent. At the same time, their risk of death from a cause other than cardiovascular disease or cancer went up by 3 percent. The findings are purely observational, which means we still don't know what is driving this relationship at a biological level. Nevertheless, the results support growing evidence that the retina is highly sensitive to the damages of aging. Because this visible tissue hosts both blood vessels and nerves, it could tell us important information about an individual's vascular and brain health. The study was published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
For instance, if the algorithm predicted a person's retina was a year older than their actual age, their risk of death from any cause in the next 11 years went up by 2 percent. At the same time, their risk of death from a cause other than cardiovascular disease or cancer went up by 3 percent. The findings are purely observational, which means we still don't know what is driving this relationship at a biological level. Nevertheless, the results support growing evidence that the retina is highly sensitive to the damages of aging. Because this visible tissue hosts both blood vessels and nerves, it could tell us important information about an individual's vascular and brain health. The study was published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
Sounds Dangerous (Score:5, Funny)
Just over a decade after these retinas were scanned, 1,871 individuals had died
Holy shit these scanners must be shut down at all costs!
Re: (Score:2)
Just over a decade after these retinas were scanned, 1,871 individuals had died
Holy shit these scanners must be shut down at all costs!
That's why Lasers have warning signs... "Do NOT look into laser with remaining good eye."
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Diabetic retinopathy and atherosclerosis show up (Score:2, Informative)
Like skin, quite a lot is revealed by the condition of soft tissues of the human body, and the retina shows accumulated vascular damage very well indeed, even if paients lie. So it's not a big surprise.
I'm pretty sure (Score:2)
This was an IT Crowd episode.
Re: I'm pretty sure (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: I'm pretty sure (Score:2)
I thought it was proverbs:
Proverbs 30:17 â" The eye is the window to the soul
Well it's occasionally off by a few seconds. (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Ooh! Dibs on his CD player!
Those are good boots (Score:2)
You mean like the pals of the German soldier in All's Quiet on the Western Front. Of the dude in the hospital ward for those triaged as "expectant" (to die soon) in the era before antibiotics?
Nope. (Score:2)
https://falseknees.com/218.html [falseknees.com]
SMBC (comic) (Score:5, Funny)
The title/summary reminded me of this comic: https://www.smbc-comics.com/in... [smbc-comics.com]
Borderline (Score:2)
The title reminded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Interesting (Score:5, Insightful)
Something In Your Eyes.. (Score:2)
Very dangerous indeed.
So IOW useless (Score:2)
"The findings are purely observational, which means we still don't know what is driving this relationship at a biological level. "
So people can go look for a bargain funeral in time but nothing to fight?
Why tell us?
Re: So IOW useless (Score:5, Insightful)
Because this is how lots of research happens. You look at tons of things. Many don't pan out. Sometimes you notice correlations. You focus in on that and figure out what (if anything) caused the correlation, then you work on how to prevent or fix it.
Re: (Score:2)
"You focus in on that and figure out what (if anything) caused the correlation, then you work on how to prevent or fix it."
Got it. Thks.
Sounds plausible. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no shortage of candidate explanations. There are detectable proteins decades before a patient has Alzheimer's. There's some evidence that cornea damage can be linked to Alzheimer's and other brain deterioration. The average length of telomeres is a good indicator of life expectancy, and retinal cells will follow the same normal distribution of telomere length as any other cell. There seem to be changes to the microbiome when a person starts to approach death, although it's still unclear how far back these changes go.
Any or all of these could be factors, although it's likely it'll be something else.
Re: (Score:2)
On a broad level it's probably a case of a very sensitive and specialized organ being susceptible to the body being in bad shape.
So that we can provide you the best quote... (Score:2)
Loganâ(TM)s Run (Score:2)
So, instead of a palm indicator, we just use the retina to determine when we should go to âoecarousel âoe?
Mine turned black already. I am past expiration.
An important bit: (Score:2)
No significant association was identified between retinal age gap and cardiovascular- or cancer-related mortality.
Considering these are the two leading causes of death for Americans, [cdc.gov] this may not be helpful for them.
Re: (Score:2)
Or it could be that this is an indicator for the less obvious causes of death. We already know how to prevent cardiovascular disease - not that knowing does a whole lot of good.
Windows to the soul (Score:2)
Iridology (Score:2)
Study is paywalled of course (Score:3)
Without paying $40 and/or being up on the jargon it's hard to comment. The linked article says "machine learning", which means we may not know what the algorithm is picking up. It might be detecting macular degeneration [wikipedia.org] which the wiki article says has a genetic component. Of course aging has a genetic component too.
DO. NOT. WANT. (Score:2)
Doctor's diagnosis (Score:2)
I had a checkup and my doctor told me that I was in danger of passing away prematurely. I asked him how long I had left. He said, "20."
I asked what that was. Months, weeks?
He said, "19...18..."
Re: (Score:2)
The time to REALLY worry about it is if the doctor is also holding a gun...