What would you do if you knew when you were going to die? Perhaps you would decide to repair some earrings in your life, or spend your last moments next to the people you love the most, or give free rein to your desires or instincts… The truth is that scientists developed a way to find the answer to the question of “when am I going to die” in the eyes.
Researchers from the Center for Eye Research Australia of the University of Melbourne, in Australia, and the Department of Ophthalmology of the Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences, in China, developed an artificial intelligence algorithm to verify that the eyes are the window of the soul, as the poets said.
By analyzing more than 69,000 retinal images over 500,000 participants between 40 and 69 years of age from the UK Biobank, a large government study, developed a way of determining the differences between the biological age of a person and the actual biological health of the eye, which they called the “retinal age gap.” But they also found that each year of difference between a person’s real age and their biological age represents a 2% increase in the risk of death from any cause.
However, the largest gaps, with differences of three, five and 10 years between biological age and retinal age, were significantly associated with an up to 67% higher risk of death from specific diseases, as chronic conditions.
“Our findings indicate that the retinal age gap could be a potential biomarker of aging that is closely related to the risk of mortality”, so this method could be useful for personalized medical interventions, the authors wrote in the research published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.
“The retina offers a unique and accessible ‘window’ to assess the underlying pathological processes of diseases systemic vascular and neurological disorders that are associated with an increased risk of mortality,” wrote Dr. Mingguang He, Professor of Ophthalmic Epidemiology at the University of Melbourne, and lead author of the study.
And while this method of medical diagnosis needs to be explored in greater depth, researchers believe that this type of non-invasive eye test can help patients make decisions about their health general.
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