Various cellular and molecular mechanisms that may lead to apoptotic cell death of retinal ganglion cells in glaucoma are discussed. These cellular mechanisms include neurotrophic factor deprivation, ischemia, glial cell activation, glutamate excitotoxicity, and abnormal immune response. Based on experimental and clinical evidence, the rationale for various neuroprotective strategies is described.

https://www.ophthalmology.theclinics.com/article/S0896-1549(05)70207-8/pdf

Retinal ganglion cell death in glaucoma: mechanisms and neuroprotective strategies.

Epidemiological studies have demonstrated that elevated blood pressure is one of the major risk factors for stroke and coronary heart disease (CHD). A close association between blood pressure and the incidence of cardiovascular diseases is well established if systolic/diastolic blood pressure is above 140/90 mmHg. In recent years, nutraceuticals and functional foods have attracted considerable interest as potential alternative therapies for treatment of hypertension, especially for prehypertensive patients, whose blood pressure is marginally or mildly high but not high enough to warrant the prescription of blood pressure-lowering medications. This review summarizes the findings of recent studies on the chemistry, production, application, efficacy, and mechanisms of popular blood pressure-lowering nutraceuticals and functional foods including the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet plan, L-arginine, chlorogenic acid, fermented milk, garlic, onion, tea, soybean, ginger, hawthorn, and fish oil.

Anti-hypertensive nutraceuticals and functional foods.

https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/19779/1/19779_Jan_2011_revision_DF_CW_LB.pdf

Consumption of cocoa flavanols results in an acute improvement in visual and cognitive functions

A sick eye in a sick body? Systemic findings in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma.

Purpose To better understand the relations between glaucomatous perimetric defects and ganglion cell damage, a neural model was developed to interpret empiric findings on linear relations between perimetric defects and measures of ganglion cell loss. Methods A two-stage model computed responses of ganglion cell mosaics (first stage), then computed perimetric sensitivity in terms of processing by spatial filters (second stage) that pool the ganglion cell responses. Cell death and dysfunction were introduced in a local patch of the first-stage ganglion cell mosaic, and perimetric defect depth was computed for the corresponding region of the visual field. Calculations were performed for both sparse and dense ganglion cell mosaics and for spatial filters with peak frequencies from 0.5 to 4.0 cyc/deg. Results The model yielded nonlinear functions for perimetric defect depth in decibel versus the percentage of ganglion cell damage, but functions for lower spatial frequencies became linear when perimetric defect was expressed as a percentage of normal. The relations between perimetric defects and percentage of ganglion cell loss were determined primarily by spatial tuning of the second-stage spatial filters. For averaging sensitivities across different visual field locations, linear units (arithmetic mean) can more closely approximate mean ganglion cell loss than decibel units (geometric mean). Fits to data from experimental glaucoma required ganglion cell dysfunction in addition to ganglion cell loss. Conclusions Pooling by second-stage spatial filters can account for empiric findings of linear relations between perimetric defects and measures of ganglion cell loss.

Sabina Bettelli

Papers

Effect of Ginkgo biloba extract on preexisting visual field damage in normal tension glaucoma.