NIGHT lights could prevent the most common form of blindness in people with diabetes.
Photoreceptor cells in the retina need more oxygen than usual when the eyes are adapted to the dark. While a normal retina can cope, Neville Drasdo and a team from Cardiff University found that diabetic people, who often have circulatory problems, don’t seem to be able to cope with the extra demand, and the cells are left short of oxygen.
This oxygen deficiency could damage the cells, they conclude, causing diabetic retinopathy (The Lancet, vol 359, p 2251).
The team says that perhaps the damage…
