Healthy Habits
“One of the ways to prevent and avoid risks is to promote good eating habits from the beginning.” Therefore, recalled that “one of the major health problems in society today is childhood obesity, not to mention the alterations associated with diseases such as anorexia and bulimia.
In this regard, the Hospital Doctor Peset Valencia is conducting a multidisciplinary study to analyze the effects of malnutrition on visual function and central nervous system. The research consists of a clinical and experimental models in animals.
The first involves patients with eating disorders, which are currently conducting a study of visual function: visual acuity tests, visual field and fundus study.
“The central nervous system and visual system are extremely sensitive and vulnerable to nutritional disturbances, both in development and in adults. Malnutrition during development can induce the failure of axons and altered axonal myelination, “the researchers explain.
“Our working hypothesis is that possibly retinal cells undergo a gradual process of injury or damage, depending on the level of malnutrition, which could end with the death of these cells. This is reflected in a loss of vision or visual processing anomalies, for example, could explain from a physical point why patients with anorexia have an altered vision of his own body, an unrealistic image of themselves that could due to damage to neurons in the visual cortex.
