Losing sight
Take the Next Step Common Eye Disorders
From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
A study finds more Americans of working age are losing ability to see. David Friedman of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine compared national health examination data from 1999 to 2002 with data from 2005 to 2008:
``Visual impairment that cannot be corrected with glasses increased by about 20 percent over the last six to seven years. The only major risk factor for vision loss that increased was diabetes lasting 10 or more years.’’
But the risk and potential damage of the most common type of diabetes can be controlled with diet and physical activity.
The study in the Journal of the American Medical Association was supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health.
Learn more at healthfinder.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I’m Ira Dreyfuss.