They say our eyes can tell a lot about a person. Eye contact is even the key to a lot of successful relationships, but also for terrible rivalries. But our eyes, regardless of how beautiful or ugly they are, can hold the key to our true biological age, as a new study says.
The intriguing new information comes from CNN, as the publication tells the world about the possibility for the retina to reveal to us our true biological age. That could even mirror our chronological age.
Over 130,000 retinal images of samples analyzed
For the new study, more than 130,000 retinal images from samples that were provided by UK BioBank participants were analyzed. Over 500,000 participants from 40 to 69 years of age were involved in the UK BioBank.
Dr. Mingguang He, the author of the new study and a professor at the University of Melbourne and Centre for Eye Research in Australia, declared as quoted by CNN:
The retina offers a unique, accessible ‘window’ to evaluate underlying pathological processes of systemic vascular and neurological diseases that are associated with increased risks of mortality.
Dr. Sunir Garg, who’s a clinical spokesperson from the American Academy of Ophthalmology, and who wasn’t involved in the new study, explained as quoted by the same source:
Using a deep learning algorithm, the computer was able to determine the patient’s age from a color photo of the retina with pretty good accuracy. These level of changes are not things that we as clinicians will be able to tell — we can tell if someone is a child versus an older adult, but not if someone is 70 vs 80,
The really unique aspect of this paper is using that difference in a patient’s real age compared to the age the computer thought a patient was to determine mortality. This is not something that we thought was possible.
The new study was published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
