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Dark Adaptation is Impaired in Diabetics before Photopic Visual Losses Can be Seen

Can Hypoxia of Rods Contribute to Diabetic Retinopathy?

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Retinal Degenerative Diseases and Experimental Therapy

Abstract

The main theme of this volume is the inherited retinal degenerations, but the most important causes of blindness have a different aetiology, not directly related to genetic defects. Diabetes is the greatest cause of blindness in younger people, and even con sidering all age groups is as common a cause of blindness as Glaucoma and Age Related Maculopathy. Diabetes causes a retinopathy (DR) which is basically a vasculopathy1,2 and the cellular biology of DR has been recently linked to cytokines.3 Starting from this fact, it has been proposed that techniques of molecular biology which might be of use in the treatment of inherited degenerative diseases could also be applicable to DR. This paper is however concerned with a far simpler method of controlling DR, which is based on the physiology of the eye, the particular features of which have been known for half a century but not exploited in this connection. The basic idea is that anoxia early in DR will only develop during dark adaptation, occuring in long periods every night in sleep.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. City University, London

    G. B. Arden & J. E. Wolf

  2. Queen Mary College, London

    J. Collier, C. Wolff & M. Rosenberg

Authors
  1. G. B. Arden
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  2. J. E. Wolf
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  3. J. Collier
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  4. C. Wolff
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  5. M. Rosenberg
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Cole Eye Institute, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland, Ohio

    Joe G. Hollyfield

  2. Dean A. McGee Eye Institute, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

    Robert E. Anderson

  3. Beckman Vision Center, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California

    Matthew M. LaVail

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© 1999 Kluwer Academic / Plenum Publishers

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Arden, G.B., Wolf, J.E., Collier, J., Wolff, C., Rosenberg, M. (1999). Dark Adaptation is Impaired in Diabetics before Photopic Visual Losses Can be Seen. In: Hollyfield, J.G., Anderson, R.E., LaVail, M.M. (eds) Retinal Degenerative Diseases and Experimental Therapy. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-33172-0_29

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-585-33172-0_29

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-0-306-46193-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-0-585-33172-0

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