Exercise Linked To Healthier Eyes, Better Vision

A U.S. study in mice demonstrated that treadmill training preserved photoreceptor cells in the animals’ retinas after exposure to damaging bright light. The findings, if applicable to humans, suggest that moderate aerobic exercise may slow the progression of retinal degenerative diseases, like age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness in the elderly. The exercised mice lost only half the photoreceptor cells that the control group lost. In addition, the retinal cells of exercised mice were more responsive to light and had higher levels of a growth- and health-promoting protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF).