Vision Eyecare Lasik Health and Medical News/Updates

SATURDAY, Sept. 18 (HealthDay News) — Only about 5 percent of
American adults do some type of vigorous physical activity on any given
day, according to the results of a new study.

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US researchers have discovered two powerful antibodies that neutralize more than 90 percent of all known strains of the HIV virus in the lab, new research released Thursday showed.

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‘Twilight’ Star Kellan Lutz Talks Abs, Fitness and Diet
Lutz was recently interviewed by Men’s Health India Lina Yu In the latest issue of Men’s Health India , Twilight heartthrob Kellan Lutz discusses his abs, how he keeps in shape and his diet.

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LV HEALTH: Big Fitness Gains Are Easier Than Most Think
Today, my dear readers, we have a pop quiz. Here goes. Of all of the following methods, which is the best exercise for overall health:

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Edwards on President’s council on fitness, nutrition
First Lady Michelle Obama joined kids from the Washington, D.C. area Wednesday to launch the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition and introduce the 2010 council co-chairs and members. In conjunction with Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative, this year President Obama has broadened the scope of the council, formerly known as the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports …

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How to preserve the most nutrients from your vegetables
Want to get the most nutrition out of your veggies? Check out these buying and cooking techniques that will preserve taste and nutrition.

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There have been five major advances in LASIK since it was first invented: 1. The use of eye trackers – The first LASIK procedures required the patient to fixate on a light and that was what was used to center the treatment. The invention of eye tracker technology allows the laser to be programmed to define the location of the pupil and when the treatment is started even if the eye moves, the laser stays centered on the pupil which gives treatments that are correctly centered over the optical portion of the eye. 2. Small spot scanning lasers – The first lasers and ones still in use today use a “broad beam” where the treatment laser beam is as large as the optical zone being treated and astigmatism is corrected by varying the shape of this beam. Although this is effective, there are limitations to the types of shapes that can be created, and the quality of the ablation is limited to the quality of the laser beam. Newer lasers use small scanning spots to shape the front of the eye, and with much lower energy per laser pulse. 3. Wavefront optimized ablations – Originally LASIK was done with a mathematical model to flatten the center of the cornea to correct the refractive error. It was learned that this creates halos, glare, and other optical aberrations that are unwanted, especially in patients with larger pupils. The newer lasers can correct the refractive error but maintain a more natural or prolate shape due to more advanced algorithms for the correction. 4. All laser LASIK – All laser LASIK was initially done using a microkeratome that employs a disposable razor blade to cut the corneal flap, which is the first step in traditional LASIK. By using a femtosecond laser, Intralase, and then others were able to create a flap using a laser which is safer, more predictable, and gives more reproducible results. The razor portion is still used by many centers today, but is the cause of most of the risks of the LASIK procedure. 5. Thin flap LASIK – Initially all LASIK was done with a flap of about 180 microns. This is about 20% of the thickness of the structural cornea (the epithelial skin not counted) in most cases and the thickness was unpredictable due to use of the blade (see reason 4 above). Sometimes the flap was over 200 microns. This can weaken the cornea and lead to complications. The all laser method can make thinner flaps, and over time doctors have moved to “thin flap LASIK” with flaps of about 100 microns and in some cases 90 microns which is half as thick as the original flaps. BONUS IMPROVEMENT: Although not technically a change in Denver LASIK itself, the diagnostic capabilities have improved since the early days of LASIK making the imaging of the cornea more robust with technologies such as OCT, Wavefront analysis, and posterior surface topography. All of these changes have contributed to making an improvement in LASIK.  Recently we have begun to look at corneal hysteresis (CH) which is a measure of corneal strength.

FRIDAY, June 18 (HealthDay News) — Only about one-third of
cardiac patients were doing regular heart-healthy exercises a year after a
heart attack, bypass surgery or angioplasty, researchers have found.

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We fret about airport scanners, power lines, cell phones and even microwaves. It’s true that we get too much radiation. But it’s not from those sources — it’s from too many medical tests.

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Popular eyeglasses were first invented in 1284 in Italy by Salvino D’Armate. With the advent of 20th century, the Zeiss Punktal point-focus spherical lenses that are the most popular in the eyeglass market today, were developed by Moritz von Rohr at Zeiss. Glasses can be a dominant part of personality and expression. Masaharu Morimoto, a Japanese Celebrity chef, separates his “Iron Chef” stage personality from his professional image by wearing a distinct pair of glasses. While actor Jeff Goldblum is often seen in the Browline glasses style.The father of the polarized lens is Edwin Land; he discovered the concept in 1929 and Polaroid Corporation was born in 1937. Since then Polaroid filters have been immensely used in sunglasses in addition to glare-free automobile headlights and stereoscopic (3-D) photography.Due to its prominence in shaping personalities, designer glasses are on the rise. The market offers consumers several reputed and economical brands of designer eyewear. Selecting the right frame for your prescription glasses can be a daunting experience.Depending on individual tastes, there exist many favourite brands. The top three brands are Italian-based companies, but a couple of well-known French companies are not far behind. Depending on the designer, material used and the quality of protection they offer, expect to pay $50 onwards.Today people extensively invest in branded and designer eyeglasses. They have evolved from classic styled glasses without much personality, to extreme statements of fashion. So what do you look for when buying a pair of designer glasses?Frame is the determining factor in selection of eyewear. These are either manufactured from plastic or stainless steel, and titanium. Plastic frames are the lightest, but not very durable. Stainless steel is durable, but heavier and cumbersome. However, Titanium combines the best of both worlds, but is expensive. You may pay a little extra for the designer eyewear, but the assurance of a high quality product that is both durable and fashionable is worth every dime.A certain New York based company’s brand seems to scream “It’s not about clothes but about style!” This point of view is evident in all of this company’s designer glasses. Their eyewear is generally more fun, light and less pretentious and it dominates innovative styles, creative designs, sleek and sophisticated lines. You will never get bored of wearing these fashionable and functional frames everyday.Lastly, a very well-known and respected European brand really knows what it means to define their brand. Chic and beautiful the eyewear line offers style and comfort. They know exactly how to accentuate a woman’s beauty with their svelte and gorgeous eyewear collection. The brand has not forgotten men; for stylish and masculine steeds the eyewear compliments the rugged features with a whiff of crisp air of refinement.Purchasing online is fairly easy in comparison to visiting a local store. All you need to provide online are your vision details, upon selection of your designer eyeglasses. Your presence is not required to have them fit exactly. You merely need to provide prescription with pupil distance measurement. Lastly, bargain for free edge polishing and scratch protection for your purchase.

Many patients have asked a relatively simple question, “why was LASIK invented at all”? A decade ago very few people even knew the word LASIK, and while the word had become a part of our lexicon, the real reason that doctors choose to do LASIK escapes many peoples understanding. We were one of the first handful of doctors in the United States, and the first to realize the potential benefits of LASIK for vision correction almost fifteen years ago. Since that time there are now over 10,000 LASIK doctors in the USA alone and a multiple of this number worldwide. The reasons for the success of LASIK are numerous but in a sentence it provides rapid, accurate, and relatively painless restoration of vision to a wide range of refractive errors. Patients are able to see like they were wearing contact lenses without all of the bother, cost, inconvenience, and risks of contacts. In general they have better visual function than provided with glasses in the same way that contact lenses are better than glasses for so many reasons. This simple question is profound, because it touches on an invention that has changed the way in which the world views vision correction and has helped millions of people worldwide to see better without the aid of glasses or contact lenses. For perhaps millions of years, much of human kind has suffered with vision problems. There are the serious eye diseases such as cataracts, glaucoma and a myriad of other problems. Beyond this is the simple fact that many people are unable to see clearly at distance, near, or both. This is from the imperfections of the eyeball as a camera and this was greatly helped over that last few hundred years by glasses and more recently in the last 50 years by contact lenses. Although with the advent of lasers, there was a hope that such technology could improve vision, limitations in the nature of the eye had limited laser application to vision correction until the advent of LASIK . LASIK is a hybrid procedure, that is it involves two steps which together are able to improve vision very rapidly and predictably for patients with ametropias. The first step is to create a potential space for the laser to correct the vision and the second is to do the correction itself. In the early days of LASIK about 15-20 years ago , this potential space was made with a device called a microkeratome. This is a miniature shaver which can peel a thin layer of outer tissue from the cornea which remains attached at the edge or “hinge”. Another laser, the excimer laser then focuses on the freshly cut surface, and removes tissue in a programmed manner to reshape the eye. Finally, the flap is replaced which assumes the contour of the newly shaped cornea beneath it. It is the transfer of the shape combined with covering the treated area with living tissue that makes LASIK so remarkable. Healing occurs at the edge or seam of the flap and the eye barely knows that anything has occurred beneath. The vision is rapidly restored with no significant healing response, which is key to the success of LASIK. Newer lasers, called femtosecond lasers, are able to make the flap layer more precisely without a cutting blade but fundamentally perform the same function. This all laser approach is a safer and slightly more effective way of restoring vision by LASIK. The current state of the art in LASIK is to use advanced femtosecond lasers such as our Visumax to make a flap, and a wavefront optimized excimer laser like our Zeiss or our Allegretto laser(s) to reshape the cornea. With this type of treatment we have a very low complication rate, and excellent vision results in most cases. We become complacent very quickly with new technologies but it is a truly amazing and revolutionary accomplishment that in a procedure that lasts only a few minutes , a persons vision can be corrected from a lifetime of limitations.