Melbourne researchers find exercise could help prevent blindness

MELBOURNE eye researchers have produced some of the first evidence that exercise may help prevent and treat one of the most common causes of blindness. And they’re finding you cannot out run a bad diet.

Researchers have found evidence that exercise may help prevent and treat glaucoma.

MELBOURNE eye researchers have produced some of the first evidence that exercise may help prevent and treat glaucoma, one of the most common causes of blindness.

And they’re finding that you cannot outrun a bad diet.

The Centre for Eye Research Australia has shown that, following an injury to the optic nerve, exercise can stop mice suffering damage to the cells at the back of the eye that allow us to see.

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Physical activity after the injury can also repair damage.

CERA post-doctorial research fellow Dr Vicki Chrysostomou said physical activity could protect nerve cells in the brain and spine, and given that retinal cells were also nerve cells, it was logical that they were similarly affected.

A series of experiments published over the past three years has strengthened this hypothesis.

Physical activity could protect nerve cells in the brain and spine.

Initial work by Dr Chrysostomou in the laboratory of CERA managing director Professor Jonathan Crowston showed that mice who were on a swimming program before an optic nerve injury were protected against retinal ganglion cell functional loss.

Next, they showed that the mice were protected regardless of whether they began exercising before or after the injury, and regardless of whether they swam or ran.

But they also showed that in animals eating a Western-style diet — even for seven weeks — exercise could not save their eye cells from injury.

Though the mice on this high-fat, high-sugar diet didn’t look overweight, Dr Chrysostomou said the findings suggested diet should be considered a risk factor for glaucoma.

“We currently don’t have any effective treatments for the disease, so it’s important to have methods like lifestyle changes to try and make the optic nerve more robust,” Dr Chrysostomou said.

Understanding just how the exercise has its protective effect is the next big step to develop feasible interventions for a largely elderly population.

CERA researchers are focusing their research on a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, which is known to be released into the blood following exercise.

Blocking the action of this molecule in mice that exercise also blocks the protective effect of physical activity.

“Big picture, exercise may not be a viable option for certain populations,” Dr Chrysostomou said. “If we know the pathways to protect, you have hope of developing the so-called exercise pill. In the meantime, the advice is: any physical activity is beneficial.”

The findings were published in the journal Experimental Eye Research.

@BrigidOConnell

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