Abstract:
Topic: Diabetic Retinopathy is one of the most wide world leading causes of blindness as a result of prolonged and severe diabetes.
Aim of the study: to figure out how Diabetic Retinopathy affects ethnicity and the increasing risk of different eye color categories at the same time.
Methods: 27 organotypic cells culturing of 3 samples each of 9 retinoic gene cells of 3 different race groups: Hispanic Caucasian, Black, and White patients with early Diabetic Retinopathy.
Expectations: The research may result in a ration including the higher risk for Hispanic-blue eye color patients then the other 2 colors, following the black patients with blue eyes as well then the other two colors with moderate risk, with a lowest risk for white patients with all eye categories.
Introduction:
Diabetic retinopathy is a progressive ocular manifestation of chronic hyperglycemia damaging the back of the eye: the ‘’Retina’’. Over time, diabetes can cause the damage of blood vessels in the retina which results in the swallowing, hemorrhage, and edema of the retina preventing light from reaching back of the eye ball to be detected by the retina. The symptoms which are mainly blurring and cloudy vision take time to be obvious since Diabetic Retinopathy has two progressive stages depending on the severity and duration of Diabetes: the longer the patient has diabetes, the more risky of having diabetic retinopathy. Usually, both eyes are affected to mostly the same extent but some cases can develop early blurring in one of the eyes faster than the other .
The surprising issue that diabetic retinopathy is the first leading cause of blindness worldwide. Since the retina is the light sensitive layer of cells that converts light into electrical signals in which these signals are sent to the brain to be processed and turned into real seen images, it plays an essential role in vision control and it is very sensitive to blood supply that should be constant and enough for its magical action. The blood supply that occurs through tiny enormous blood vessels can be affected by high blood pressure caused by high blood glucose through three chronological stages :
Background Retinopathy: Slight bleeding of the blood vessels without damaging the surrounding area or any remarkable vision disorder.
Pre-proliferative retinopathy: it is also considered a mild type of retinopathy with more significant bleeding of retina blood vessels resulting in their bulging and weakening. The tiny bulges in these Blood vessels are called microaneurysm which considered the first indication of this type can leak to the center causing edema of the macula.
Proliferative Retinopathy: is the more advanced form of the disease. At this stage, retinal ischemia is the first indication resulting in formation of new but fragile blood vessels as a feedback mechanism to compensate the oxygen loss keeping in mind that the retina is extremely sensitive to blood supply and oxygen particularly. These new vessels functionally leak blood to the vitreous causing first degree of cloudy patchy images. Moreover, complications can be more and more severe if not treated causing detachment of the retina and full damage due to scar tissue formation leading to a more hazard disorders like glaucoma .
All patients with diabetes type one or two are at big risk of having retinopathy. However, other cases are in the danger zone of developing it including :
Hypertension patients
High cholesterol level patients
Pregnant women are at high risk with history of diabetes, obesity or hypertension.
Surprisingly, race has a role in some cases; Diabetic retinopathy prevalence especially among Hispanic Caucasian and black more than white people as shown in multiple studies but not all.
By retinal photography and fluorescein angiography the disease can be diagnosed. Treatment nowadays is based on Laser’ ’PHOTOCOAGULATION’’ to stop the retinal bleeding.
Aim and Scientific Questioning:
Eye color is not immune from myths and mystery. One Legend states that person with blue eyes sees heaven however black eyes see earth…so a person having heterochromia can see both heaven and earth. What is the relation between race and eye color with Diabetic Retinopathy? To what extent melanin can protect from this disease?
The aim of this article is to examine how both races and eye colors can be affected by diabetic retinopathy at the same time. Since Diabetic retinopathy is related to blood pressure causing the bulging of retinal blood vessels preventing light from reaching the retina, it is related to people already born with high blood pressure depending on their origin as well as the standard quantity
of melanin in their iris that specify their eye colors .
Method and Project Design:
27 cell samples of three groups: Hispanic Caucasian, Black and white patients suffering from early Diabetic retinopathy were studied over a period of 5 years each containing 3 samples of blue, black and light hazel eye color genes cells. By organotypic culture in petri dishes, in which all the retina fragments are dissected and cultivated as intact tissues, we started cultivating and analyzing the information of the risk factors of race on different eye colors depending on standard laboratory procedures and advanced file analysis .
The interesting history of Diabetic retinopathy tends to be more detailed in the next few years because of its worldwide importance as the first leading disease causing vision loss ‘’suddenly’’.
The main issue to be discussed in this article based on the common points of all other researches in the field of causes, treatment, and preventions which is focusing in details on the risk of being affected by this sudden disease among three different categories with different abilities to receive light .
After adjusting the exact needed temperature which is about 37 °C and gas mixture(5% of CO2), 95% of humidity and PH mantainance by adding bicarbonate to the dish, we add the essential nutrients including glucose, amino acids, vitamins, balanced salt solutions and other growth factors supplied from fetal bovine serum cultivating the first set of 9 samples: 1 black, 1 blue, 1 hazel gene of each race group in the cell incubator, the visualization was very precise to detect the development of angiogenesis. After all the cells proliferate we stop this process by undergoing senescence. The cell lines started to be proliferating in the blue Caucasian pitri dish with high plating density (the number of cells per volume of culture medium) firstly to be later the hazel of the same group; surprisingly the Hispanic showed the fastest cell proliferation. Next Petri dish shows detection in new blood vessels formation is the blue color of black patient’s cell but not as great extent as that of Caucasian blue cells. The black eye color of Caucasian hypertrophy is seen before the black and hazel cells of black patients in which the white samples are the last cells to show simple angiogenesis principally the blue cells later the other two colors at the same time .
We repeated the experiment twice, the second in the middle of February, by expectation most of the results will match the same trial except that the blue eye color cells of black origin protrude new enormous blood vessels formation in the same way as the blue cells of Hispanic Caucasian .
In March, The third time, the exact results may be seen as the first experiment ensuring the facts may obtained in the same chronological order .
Moreover, the expected results will be documented by file analysis from old studies that statistically were significant in the field of how angiogenesis of diabetic retinopathy can be the first to be seen in Caucasian people more than others. These studies showed that about 90% of Hispanic people are born with low melanin pigmentation in their iris which is the protection layer against the entering light through the pupil to the retina then to be shifted into electrical signal by the central nervous system center through the optic nerve .
This fact is the main cause behind the question why these people are of higher risk of having retinopathy. The importance of melanin may not be preventing the disease itself but the angiogenesis caused by the disease as a compensatory effect can block the light entrance so more melanin as indicated in the brown or black eye colors forms a barrier against vision loss through allowing more light to enter and reach the retina .
From this point, the blue eyes with low melanin will have greater risk of developing the disease and allowing less light to be passed resulting in blurry and cloudy spots without complete clear image……Blue eyes hypothetically cannot see heaven but see nothing in deed!
Conclusion
The experimental expectation is that the blue samples of Caucasian origins are the first cells to proliferate rapidly under normal laboratory conditions because blue color with its low wave length allows less light to be reflected to the back of the eye , following the other colors of the same race then the black ethnicity with less angiogenesis rates, and finally the white patient’s samples, in which the melanin pigmentation tends to be less in Caucasian over centuries stimulating angiogenesis exposing them to higher risks for having diabetic retinopathy .
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Copyrights – Diana Sadek – Meddy Bear 2017