Reading time: 2 minutes – Spotted on Science Alert
Asteroid hyalosis is a condition that can appear as we age and causes the eye to look like a starry sky. It’s not clear what causes it, or what it says about a person’s overall health, which adds to the mystery surrounding it.
Age appears to be a risk factor, but the disease and its correlations with other health problems are not well studied, Science Alert reports. Various studies, however, estimate that asteroid hyalosis affects approximately 1 to 2 people in 100 and that humans are not the only ones to suffer from it, since dogs can also contract it.
Also, it rarely causes vision problems, although it can make the diagnosis of other eye conditions more difficult. So many people don’t even know they have it.
The visual effect caused by this disease is due to an accumulation of material – often calcium – in the fluid of the eye. Some types of debris are invisible to the patient’s eyes but look like “glittering opacities” to those looking in from the outside. Under direct lighting, these bodies are “creamy white,” but using an ophthalmoscope (a device that allows doctors to look inside the eye), the material sparkles like gold.
Eye to eye
Studies that have observed the eyes of patients with asteroid hyalosis have not produced consistent results. The disease nevertheless seems to occur without inflammation and, according to some experts, it is linked to blood vessel problems or even to problems with cellular recycling.
The eyes are the only external part of our nervous system and therefore can be very revealing. Thus, in recent years, many scientists have taken to examining the eyes of certain people in order to detect signs preceding Alzheimer’s disease or even premature aging. In 2022, for example, artificial intelligence has succeeded in deducing the ages of several thousand people simply by looking at the inside of their eyes.
Concerning asteroid hyalosis, it remains to be seen whether it could predict similar health outcomes. However, this will require the publication of larger clinical trials.
