When you think of signs of heart problems, you are probably imagining chest pain, difficulty breathing and dizziness. However, new research from UC San Diego Health has revealed that an early marker of heart disease can indeed be found by studying your eyes. To get the full story about what your eyes can reveal about your heart’s health, read on and to get another way to test your ticker, make sure you can’t do it in 90 seconds, your heart is in danger, says study .
The eyes are particularly interesting to study because, as UC San Diego researchers said in their findings – published on March 2 in the newspaper EClinical Medicine by The Lancet– they are the only place on the body where our smallest blood vessels can be easily observed. Decreased blood flow or other problems related to heart disease, such as increased blood pressure, will cause visible damage to the eye and alert doctors to underlying or developing problems.
“The eyes are a window to our health, and many diseases can manifest in the eyes; cardiovascular diseases are no exception ”, the main author of the article Mathieu Bakhoum, MD, PhD, a medical scientist and retinal surgeon at UC San Diego Health, said in a statement. And to learn more about what your eyes say about your well-being, see 17 warning signs that your eyes are trying to tell you about your health.
Considering that heart disease kills more Americans than any other disease each year, researchers at the Shiley Eye Institute at UC San Diego Health began to see if a non-invasive eye test could detect underlying heart problems, which would aid in early detection .
They assumed that retinal ischemia could serve as an early indicator of heart disease. So the team looked at how an optical coherence tomography (OCT), which creates images of the retina, could be studied to see where the lesions were occurring. The retina is the innermost, light-sensitive layer of the eye, and anything out of the ordinary is a cause for concern.
“Ischemia, which is the decrease in blood flow caused by heart disease, can lead to inadequate blood flow to the eye and can cause the death of cells in the retina, leaving a permanent mark,” said Bakhoum. ‘retinal ischemia perivascular lesions,’ or RIPLs, and sought to determine whether this finding could serve as a biomarker for cardiovascular disease. ”And for more heart disease warning signs, make sure you see it in your mouth, the risk of heart attack is high, says the study.
UC San Diego Health researchers reviewed the records of individuals who received a retinal OCT at the hospital from July 2014 to July 2019 and compared the exams of individuals with heart disease to those of healthy individuals. According to the researchers, an increase in the number of RIPLs was observed in the eyes of individuals with heart disease, leading them to conclude that, “The greater the number of RIPLs observed, the greater the risk of patients suffering from cardiovascular disease”.
The American College of Cardiology developed the atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (ASCVD) risk score calculator, which is how doctors assess a patient’s 10-year risk of suffering a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke. In the report, the researchers found a correlation between the number of RIPLs in a patient’s eye and his ASCVD risk score. “Individuals with low and borderline ASCVD scores had a low number of RIPLs in their eyes, but as the risk of ASCVD increased, so did the number of RIPLs,” said Bakhoum. And for more health news delivered straight to your inbox, sign up for our daily newsletter.
Ophthalmologists at UC San Diego Health suggest referring patients to a cardiologist if RIPLs are identified during an OCT scan, even if they have not yet shown other symptoms of heart disease. “Globally, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death and, unfortunately, many people are unaware that they may have heart problems,” said Bakhoum. “The key to preventing this is early detection and treatment. We hope that by identifying RIPLs as a marker for cardiovascular disease providers, it will be possible to identify heart problems before a catastrophic event, such as a heart attack or stroke, occurs. ” And for cardiovascular risk factors, make sure you have this blood type, the risk of heart attack is higher, says the study.