What are Eye Floaters Part I
Suffering with eye floaters? They are a huge problem with only invasive medical help. Could there be nutritional help?
I checked out Auburn’s historic little town and it didn’t really hold my attention as it was mostly restaurants. As I was taking a picture of the fire hall, I saw this wonderful building peeking over the rooftop, piquing my curiosity. I went there just to walk around it and take some pictures when I saw the sign “free museum open today.” Free? I am in!
Errected in 1898 the Placer courthouse is still in use today. The outside of the building is an incredible 3-story classic revival structure topped by a bracketed cornice and simple renaissance revival-inspired dome. The entire first floor is a museum. It includes gold chunks discovered in the area during the gold rush. Totally worthy of Ethan Hunt and his mission-impossible crew. The rest of the interactive self-guided museum tour includes the history of Auburn and how technology has developed through the years. It will take you 20 -45 minutes to go through. The hologram of the panhandler is really neat. If you are ever in Auburn, you must experience the courthouse.
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Last week’s answer to what color my eyes are … BROWN. When I had my podcast, the artist somehow rendered my eyes blue so, for a while, I also had blue eyes.
Here is this week’s “get to know me better, fun conversation”. I will share a “true or false” or “which one is true about me.” Play along and take a guess right here. If you want to play along, ask me 3 things about you, and let me guess in the comments.
This week, I am skipping the recipe because this is a long one answering Kathie’s question. In fact, I will be splitting this into a couple of parts. Kathie wrote;
I have noticed that I have eye floaters. How or can I get rid of them? What causes them? I’m 69 years old with brown eyes if that matters. Thanks in advance ❤️
Kathie
Thanks for reaching out Kathie and this is a timely topic. I have numerous people reaching out about eye floaters, and I too have been looking for the magic pill. My eyes are brown and you have me thinking, could it be related to eye colour? I have not come across anything on the web or in studies indicating a specific eye colour and floaters.
However, I am very curious, can you take the poll?
Here is what we are going to cover
The anatomy of the eye
A better understanding of the eye’s function
What happens to the eye as we age and how this creates floaters
Nutrients responsible for eye function
On long drives, with no technology, cell phones, tablets or backseat video equipment I had to find another way to entertain myself as a kid. Sitting in the back of my parent’s station wagon squinting my eyes I could see squiggly worms floating around my eyes. I always tried to actually see them, but, never could catch them. Today, at 50-something, I don’t have to squint, they are a constant annoyance of squiggly worms and one big annoying brownish fuzz ball.
I have been researching this for quite some time and can share with you some of my research. I have only begun to put this into practice for myself and I am seeing some results. They are not gone yet, but I do believe I can make it happen. I have been told by numerous health professionals that it is impossible. I was also told you can not reverse Crohn’s disease, stage I uterine cancer, or remove plaque. I am a living testament you can.
I do believe there are a couple of things at play such as blood sugar, our digestive strength, the ability of our lymphatic system to detoxify, and our microbiome’s influence which all play a role in the aging process.
Anatomy of the Vitreous Humor
There are numerous parts to the eye, as you can see in this picture. We are going to focus on the Vitreous humour.
The vitreous fluid (also known as vitreous humor-from Latin meaning liquid) is a transparent colorless watery gel-like mass that fills between the lens and retina and the space in the center of the eye (known as the vitreous humor), surrounded by the vitreous membrane which is made up of a layer of collagen. Combined, the fluid makes up four-fifths of the volume of the eyeball.
There is another named liquid, aqueous humor, found between the cornea and lens. This liquid is a transparent water-like fluid similar to plasma, but containing low protein concentrations secreted from the ciliary body, supporting the lens of the eyeball. We won’t be covering that today.
What is the role of the Vitreous Humor
The vitreous does a couple of things. First, it keeps the center of the eye clear so that light coming in can reach the retina for us to see. It also helps the lens to focus, much like manually adjusting the lens on a camera. The vitreous humor also maintains the round shape of the eye and keeps the retina from detaching. Scientists are learning this fluid is much like the synovial fluid found in our joints.
The vitreous humor is fluid-like near the centre, and gel-like near the edges. Collagen fibrils attach to the parts of the eye. The gel contains numerous nutrients as well as phagocytes that are like little Pac-man, removing unwanted cellular debris.
“At birth, the vitreous is in the form of a gel, but with age, this gel undergoes progressive liquefaction. This process of liquefaction is evident after the age of 4 years and by the time the eye reaches full size (14-18 years of age) approximately 20% of the vitreous cavity is liquid. By the age of between 80 and 90 years, more than 50% of the vitreous is liquefied.
The science of eye floaters, what causes them?
Floaters usually happen because of normal changes in your eyes. Over time, the vitreous starts to liquefy (a process called syneresis) and shrink. The shrinking of the liquid, causes some collagen fibers to break away and clump together.
These clumps are not entirely transparent and can cast shadows on your retina (the light-sensitive layer of tissue at the back of the eye). The shadows of the fibers are what you see as floaters. According to the research, Floaters are a normal part of the aging process, although younger people can experience them too.
What is vitreous humour made of?
Before we can get into possible help with eye floaters, it is important to understand the nutrients involved in keeping our eyes healthy. It will also help when I explain the digestive role in keeping our eyes healthy. You know I am going to talk about digestion. Is there any part of our body that is not affected by digestion? I think not.
The vitreous humour contains no blood vessels, and 98–99% of its volume is water. In addition to water, there are electrolytes, salts, sugars, and vitrosin; a network of collagen type II fibrils with glycosaminoglycan, hyaluronan, opticin, and a wide array of proteins.
Collagen, glycosaminoglycans (GAGs); are long polysaccharides or what we know as sugars. GAGs are highly polar molecules meaning they attract water; the body uses them as lubricants or shock absorbers. These sugars are constantly altered by processing enzymes.
Hyaluronan, also known as hyaluronic acid can be described as the “goo” molecule, a highly hydrated transparent carbohydrate polymer that is part of the extracellular matrix. Found throughout the body this lubricating goo is estimated to be between 98% and 99.7% mixture of water with the eye containing a very dilute dispersion of structural macromolecules including hyaluronan (HA), proteoglycans, collagens and non-collagenous proteins.
The goo is also responsible for the turnover and movement of cells, playing a role in tissue regeneration, anti-inflammatory properties, and aids in the phases of wound repair.
Opticin is also found in the extracellular matrix is a class of small leucine-rich proteins. Opticin is predominately found in the vitreous of the eye, cornea, iris, ciliary body, optic nerve, choroid, retina, and fetal liver. Its role is to bind and regulate collagen fibril growth, spacing and organization.
The fluid also contains anti-oxidants which may help protect the lens from oxygen and mitigate against cataracts. The gel and its fluid allow oxygen and nutrients to flow from the front of the eye to the back of the eye.
The flow of fluids can include anterior pathways, vitreous humor, retinal pigment epithelium through flowing fluid or gas, diffusive transport via the extracellular matrix and ciliary body. This relies on minerals glycoproteins, antioxidants and vitamins to support enzymatic processes.
In the study of the Biochemical structure of mammalian vitreous, author Paul bishop found 18 different types of collagen molecules composed of three polypeptide chains (ex-chains). “These ex-chains contain collagenous regions which possess a characteristic amino acid sequence with glycine at every third residue while the other two residues frequently comprise the amino acids proline or hydroxyproline.
Now that we have a better understanding of how the eye works and what it is made of will help us to better understand the connections to how the rest of the body as well as what we eat and how we digest make better sense, which, we will cover next week.
If you have any questions on what we have covered so far, please drop them into the comments section. If you have a question that has not been covered yet ask away, and I will include it in Part II next week.
If you know of others who could use this information be a good human and share it with them. They will thank you forever!
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