1 In This Issue From the Director 2-5 News and Feature Article 6 2009 Schedule IMDSG Source Book The IMDSG is sponsored by: Macular Degeneration Foundation www.eyesight.org 1-888-633-3937 and Macular Degeneration Research www.ahaf.org/ macular 1-800-437-2423 International MD Support Group NEWSLETTER MD Support, Inc. www.mdsupport.org Volume 3, Issue 12 - December 11, 2008 From the Director Early next year, the International MD Support Group will expand with a new outreach called IMDSG TeleSupport. Groups of people who are without Internet access and who are unable to travel to live group meetings will now be able to meet monthly by telephone at no cost. The moderated 45-minute sessions will include updates on latest news and listening to some of our IMDSG web presentations. This new program is a result of a unique partnership of four non-profit organizations: MD Support, MD Research, MD Foundation, and MD Partnership. Biosyntrx, Inc., a leading nutriceutical company, will provide the initial financial sponsorship. Your facilitator has complete information about IMDSG TeleSupport. It is also on the web at www.mdsupport.org/telesupport.html Remember, this service is for people who are unable to connect in any other way with our MD Community, such as attendance at live support group sessions. Please pass the word to anyone you know who may be in that situation. Dan Roberts 1
IMDSG Newsletter Latest News Brain Reorganizes to Adjust for Loss of Vision A new study from Georgia Tech shows that when patients with macular degeneration focus on using another part of their retina to compensate for their loss of central vision, their brain seems to compensate by reorganizing its neural connections. The study appears in the December edition of the journal Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience. "Our results show that the patient's behavior may be critical to get the brain to reorganize in response to disease," said Eric Schumacher, assistant professor in Georgia Tech's School of Psychology. "It's not enough to lose input to a brain region for that region to reorganize; the change in the patient's behavior also matters." In this case, that change of behavior comes when patients with AMD make up for this loss by focusing with other parts of their visual field. Schumacher and his research team found that when patients visually stimulated the preferred retinal locations, they increased brain activity in the same parts of the visual cortex that are normally activated when healthy patients focused on objects in their central visual field. They concluded that the brain had reorganized itself. While there is evidence with other tasks that suggests that the brain can reorganize itself, this is the first study to directly show that this reorganization in patients with retinal disease is related to patient behavior. The research group is currently studying how long this reorganization takes and whether it can be fostered through lowvision training in eccentric viewing. For the complete article on this topic, see www.mdsupport.org/library/brain.html. 2
IMDSG Newsletter Vitamin C May Lower Statin Levels A UC Berkeley study, led by Gladys Block, PhD, suggests that 1,000 mg of daily supplemental vitamin C can lower concentrations of C-reactive protein (CRP), the marker associated with systemic inflammation. (Free Radical Biology and Medicine, Jan. 1, 2009). It suggests that a daily dose of supplemental vitamin C can lower CRP levels in healthy, non-smoking adults in two months. Gladys Block and her staff found that for people with elevated CRP levels, the amount of CRP reduction achieved by taking vitamin C in this particular study is comparable to that in many statin studies. A multinational clinical trial led by researchers at Harvard Medical School (the Jupiter Trial), found that among people who had high levels of CRP at baseline, levels of CRP were 37 percent lower in the subjects who took statins compared to those who took the placebo. In the UC Berkeley study on vitamin C, participants who started out with CRP levels greater than 2 milligrams per liter had 34 percent lower levels of CRP with vitamin C compared with a placebo after two months. "This is clearly a line of research worth pursuing," said Dr. Block. "It has recently been suggested by some researchers that people with elevated CRP should be put on statins as a preventive measure. For people who have elevated CRP but not elevated LDL cholesterol, our data suggest that vitamin C should be investigated as an alternative to statins, or as something to be used to delay the time when statin use becomes necessary." The benefits to the consumer are that Vitamin C is considerably less costly, and it does not carry the risk of serious side-effects associated with statins. Source: Ellen Troyer, MT, MA (Chief Research Officer, Biosyntrx.com) 3
-- SPECIAL FEATURE -- Your Spectacle Prescription Explained IMDSG Newsletter This information will help you decipher those numbers and abbreviations on your spectacle prescription. A spectacle lens tries to focus a clear image onto the retina. The doctor's prescription is due mainly to the shape of your cornea. If you are only nearsighted (myopic) or farsighted (hyperopic), then you have what is called a "spherical" prescription. This means a simple spherical lens (like a magnifier or minifier) is used, and there is only one focal point. The cornea is normally spherical, like a basketball. No matter how you slice it, vertically, horizontally or at an angle, the curve is always the same. The focus power of the prescription would be a single number such as 2.25. It looks like dollars and cents, but the units are called "diopters" (D). The number is the "refractive error," or the number of degrees you are away from normal vision. If your cornea is shaped more like the oval surface of a football, two focal points exist. This is because the curve around the center of the football is different than the curve from one tipêto the other. That condition in the eye is called "astigmatism." A lens correcting an eye with astigmatism, therefore, would have two diopter numbers. The "football" can be vertical, horizontal, or at an angle. A line from end to end, going though the center of the football, is called the "axis." It's angle is based on the direction of the axis and identified in degrees, as on a protractor, with 0 degrees to the right and 180 degrees to the left. The angle number is the third number in a prescription for people with astigmatism. Such a prescription is called spherocylindrical. Most doctors use a plus sign to indicate the need for a convex lens to correct farsightedness. A minus sign indicates the need for a concave lens to correct nearsightedness. The term "plano" (pl) means there is no refractive error. 4
IMDSG Newsletter OD stands for "oculus dexter," or right eye. OS stands for "oculus sinister," or left eye. DS stands for "diopter sphere." If this appears in the 2nd and 3rd columns of your prescription, or if the columns are blank, you have no astigmatism. So a spectacle prescription for one of your eyes can look like this: OD: "+1.25-2.50 x 85" This means your right (OD) eye is: 1. slightly farsighted, needing a focus power of +1.25 2. has 2.50 units (diopters) of astigmatism 3. the angle of the axis is tilted slightly to the right (at 85 degrees on the protractor) Or it might read like this: OS: "+1.25 DS DS" (or "+1.25 ") This means your left eye (OS) is slightly farsighted, needing a focus power of +1.25, and no astigmatism is present. Finally, remember that the prescription has nothing to do with how well you see. That is your "acuity." Someone with this prescription could measure better than 20/20 acuity, while someone else with the same prescription could measure 20/200. Sources: 1. Roy Cole, O.D., F.A.A.O. (Director of Vision Program Development, The Jewish Guild for the Blind) 2. How To Read Eyeglass Or Contact Lens Prescription (www.usaeyes.org) 3. Astigmatism (www.allaboutvision.com) 5
Schedule of IMDSG Presentations January - July 2009 January 8: "Reclaiming Independence--Staying in the Driver's Seat When You No Longer Drive." Presenter: L. Penny Rosenblum, Ph.D. (University of Arizona) February 12: "Body Weight and Eye Disease." Presenter: Ellen Troyer, M.T., M.A. (Chief Research Officer, Biosyntrx, Inc.) March 12: "Should I Learn Blindness Skills?" Presenter: Robert Massoff, Ph.D. (Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins University) April 9: "New Thinking in the Prevention of AMD." Presenter: Steven Ferrucci, OD, FAAO (Southern CA College of Optometry) May 14: "Crashing Through." Presenter: Michael G. May (President & CEO, Sendero Group, LLC) Jun. 11: "The Latest in Research and Treatment." Presenter: Dan Roberts (Director, MD Support) July 9: "The Aging Brain--Memory as a Substitute for Vision." Presenter: Colleen O'Donnell (Visual Rehabilitation and Research Center, Henry Ford Health System) VEGF Trap-Eye for Radiation Therapy for Wet AMD Wet AMD For information, see www.clinicaltrials.gov 6