Look me in the eyes, little one, and I’ll tell you when you’re going to die. The vision of the future for a preventive medical check-up could look something like this or something similar. Because the Eyes are probably not just the gateway to the soul. According to a study, they can also use a retina scan to provide information about when we die.
A screening tool is designed to help determine the likelihood of people dying.
What the eye reveals about our life expectancy
Our life expectancy has increased significantly thanks to medical advances and the general increase in quality of life. However, one thing is certain: death. No one can predict with certainty whether this will overtake us tomorrow or in 30 years. Modern science also wants to answer this question and sees the solution in a deep look into our eyes.
To do this, the research team led by Zhuoting Zhu from the Center for Eye Research Australia taught a machine to use an eye scan identify “fast agers”., i.e. those people who have an increased risk of dying quickly. You have your results in British Journal of Ophthalmology published and as it turns out, the algorithm used for this seems to determine the result very precisely.
The retina provides important insights into our health
For the study, the retinas of 47,000 subjects were scanned and their “true” biological age determined. The accuracy of the algorithm was 3.5 years. Ten years after the start of the study, 1,871 participating patients have died. And the The algorithm actually correctly estimated the age of the deceased. The retina would be sensitive to the “cumulative damage of aging that increases the risk of death.” The researchers suggest that “the age difference in the retina could be a potential biomarker of aging that is closely related to the risk of death,” according to Zhuoting Zhu. For example, if the algorithm determines that a person’s retina is one year older than their actual age, their risk of dying over the next 11 years increases by 2 percent. At the same time, their risk of dying from causes other than cardiovascular disease or cancer increases by three percent.
Although the results are purely observational, the research team believes the study is proof enough that the retina is “the window to neurological disease.” So there is more and more evidence that points to the close connection between brain and eyes Clues. The retina houses blood vessels and nerves and can therefore provide important information about a person’s state of health. Cardiac or vascular diseases can also be recognized more quickly and treated accordingly. In the future, a retinal scan using a screening instrument could be used to take precautionary measures in high-risk patients.