Could taking a medication for glaucoma lower your risk of dying? An intriguing new study published in the Archives of Opthalmology suggests that it can. Glaucoma is a common eye condition that’s caused by the build up of pressure behind the eye – a condition that damages the optic nerve. This disease can result in complete loss of vision if left untreated.

According to this study, taking any medication for glaucoma lowers a glaucoma sufferer’s chances of dying. Researchers studied the medical records of 21,506 people who were forty years of age or older who had been diagnosed with glaucoma or who were suspected of having it. They found that people with glaucoma who had taken a medication to treat it had a seventy-four percent reduced death rate – no matter what type of glaucoma medication they had taken. All classes of glaucoma drugs seemed to reduce the risk of dying.

A variety of medications are used to treat glaucoma including beta blockers, alpha antagonists, carbonic anhydrase inhibitors, prostaglandin analogues and combinations of these drugs. All of these treatments lower intraocular pressure, or the pressure behind the eye, to reduce damage to the optic nerve. These drugs can be expensive and have side effects including fatigue, headache, eye redness and stinging, and dry mouth and mucous membranes. The prostaglandin analogs can also cause changes in eye color.

It’s not clear why taking medication for glaucoma reduced the death rate in this study. Researchers emphasize that more research is needed to determine whether it really is an effect of the medications or if there’s some other factor that’s skewing the results. Some glaucoma medications reduce blood pressure which could be one reason why the death rate was lower in people who used these drugs. On the other hand, people who are able to get treatment for their glaucoma have access to medical care which could be a factor in their lower risk of death.

The bottom line? More research is needed to see whether one type of medication for glaucoma offers any advantages over another when it comes to lowering death rate – although all seemed to have a similar effect on the risk of dying in this study. If one type lowers the death rate more than another, it could change the way these medications are prescribed to treat glaucoma. Stay tuned for further studies.

Filed under: Fitness

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