Eyesurgergy

Page 1

People’s Pharmacy: Did cold remedy cause sex headache? 2D

Today

T H U R S D A Y , A P R I L 10, 2003

SECTION

D

WWW.TUSCALOOSANEWS.COM

-TALK SPORTS TRIATHLETE STRESSES MOBILITY When a world-class triathlete

chats up the power of walking,

people believe it. And that’s why

Lyn Brooks, with 20 consecutive

finishes of the Hawaiian Ironman

World Triathlon, captures the

imaginations of seniors she visits

on promotional tours for a new

walker called Hugo. Looking fit and trim, she

promotes any type of comfortable

mobility as people age, including

something as moderate as walk-

ing five to 10 minutes a day, “vac-

uuming with vigor,” even dancing

with your broom, Fred and

Ginger- style.

OBESITY TARGETING JUNK FOOD The nonprofit organization

Commercial Alert is leading a

campaign to help stop childhood

obesity by banning the marketing,

distribution and sale of junk food

in schools, and improving the

quality of food provided to

schoolchildren.

PHOTO | ROBERT SUTTON

Mamie Ellis has been diagnosed with posterior vitreous detachment, which causes a dark speck to appear in the field of vision.

Commercial Alert sent the

Eyeshadow

agenda to chairs and ranking

members of state legislative edu-

cation committees, and the chief

state public health and education

officers in all 50 states. Get more information at

www.commercialalert.org or by

calling (503) 235-8012.

ENVIRONMENT GREAT APES IN GREAT DANGER

Disorder causes floating spot in person’s vision

The future of our closest living

By Tiffany Lacey

relatives is much more fragile

than previously thought.

According to a report published

online by the journal Nature, the

number of great apes in the wilds

of western Africa has been more

than halved during the past two

decades. If the current trend

continues, scientists say, these

A

Staff Writer

t first, he thought he just had something in his eye. But what Allen Booth was really experiencing had the potential to take his sight away. “It’s like a little dark speck in your eye,” he said. “To start with, I had a bunch of little, bitty ones. Then, all of a sudden, I got a little bubble on my eye, like a drop of water.” That’s when he went to his eye doctor who recognized his problem as posterior

primates could suffer population

vitreous detachment and directed him to go immediately to the Callahan Eye Foundation in Birmingham. “That’s when I started getting scared,” the 70-year-old said. “I didn’t have any idea what it was.” At its worst, a PVD involves the vitrous humor — the jelly-like filling of the inner eyeball — separating from the back of the eye, can cause blindness. The following morning, Booth underwent an emergency laser surgery to seal off the potentially harmful detachment. Nearly five years later, the detachment has been repaired, but he has accepted that the floater in his field of vision is a permanent part of his life. Similar to Booth, the are many people who have or will have floaters, though they may not be harmful or progress to the point of retinal detachment. In either case, however, an extensive eye exam should be performed to determine the severity of the floater. SEE EYE | 3D

Floaters materialize in the field of vision as the result of two actions. Over time, the proteins in the vitreous humor can form clumps that light can't pass through. On the other hand, the vitreous humor can begin to detach from the back of the eyeball due to a retinal tear.

1 Detatchment of Vitreous Humor from Retina

Eyeball Iris

Retina Optical Nerve

Light

Shadow 2 Proteins

Vitreous Humor

GRAPHIC ANTHONY BRATINA

childhood obesity prevention

declines of another 80 percent

over the next 30 years, drastical-

SOUTH AMERICAN TRAVEL DIARY

ly endangering their survival. Peter Walsh of Princeton

University and the Wildlife

Conservation Society led an

international team of researchers

Minas Gerais harbors historic personality Traveled Planned Travel Venezuela Guyana Suriname Fr. Guiana

who studied wild populations of

great apes in Gabon, in central

Africa. The small equatorial

forest cover and is a stronghold

Columbia

?

azon R iver Am

for wild chimpanzees and gorillas.

The team traipsed through 2,500

Bolivia

miles of dense jungle on several

surveys to count ape nests. It

determined that the ape popula-

tion declined by 56 percent

between the early 1980s and

2002. The study highlights the impact

of factors other than deforesta-

tion that can kill apes, namely

illegal hunting and the Ebola

virus.

Ecuador Peru Chile

Pacific Ocean

Brazil

South Ame ric a

nation retains 80 percent of its

Ouro Preto

Paraguay

Uruguay Argentina

South Atlantic STAFF ILLUSTRATION | ANTHONY BRATINA

By Sylvere and Martha Coussement

Special to The Tuscaloosa News

MINAS GERAIS ow! The state of Minas Gerais is over whelming.We left the state of Bahia and headed for Ouro Preto in Minas Gerais. We have spent nearly three weeks in this state, not surprising since so many aspects of this region deserved exploration. The colonial architecture, the art, the different cultures and personalities of its towns, the abundance of gemstones, and certainly not least, Aleijadinho, a figure of international prominence in the history of art. The state of Minas Gerais is the most important historical state of Brazil, and to get a better feeling for the background it serves well to travel back a few centuries. In 1494, the Spaniards and the Portuguese agreed to divide the New World

W

A view of Ouro Preto from the hillsides. between themselves at the Treaty of Tordesillas. For centuries the Portuguese were frustrated seeing the gold and gems flowing from the Spanish territories, while Brasilwood and sugar

THE COUSSEMENTS

were the only products coming out of their area. At the beginning of the 18th century, Bandeirantes (privately financed SEE DIARY | 6D


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
Eyesurgergy by Anthony Bratina - Issuu