Scientists from St George’s and other research centers have made a big discovery: they found 119 spots in human DNA that affect the shape and size of blood vessels in the back of the eye. This is important because the way these tiny vessels twist and turn may be linked to high blood pressure and heart disease.
Taking pictures of the back of the eye is easy and doesn’t hurt. These pictures show the retina, which is a layer of tissue at the back of the eye. The retina is filled with blood vessels and nerves, and by studying it, doctors can learn a lot about a person’s overall health. In fact, the eye is often called a “window to the body.”
Previous studies have shown that the size and shape of these eye blood vessels can be signs of bigger health problems like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. But until now, scientists didn’t fully understand how much of this was controlled by our genes.
In this new study, researchers looked at eye images from nearly 53,000 people who were part of the UK Biobank, a large health study in the UK. They used artificial intelligence (AI) to sort out and measure the blood vessels in the eye. The AI was able to tell arteries from veins and to measure how wide and how twisted the arteries were.
After that, the scientists compared this eye data with the DNA of 52,798 of the participants. They were looking for patterns in the genes of people whose eye vessels looked similar. This kind of study is called a genome-wide association study, or GWAS for short.
They found 119 areas in the DNA that are connected to the way the eye’s blood vessels look. That’s more than any earlier study has ever found. Out of these, 89 were especially linked to how twisted the arteries were. The amount of twisting—how curly the arteries were—seems to be heavily influenced by genetics.
The team also discovered that people with more twisted arteries in the retina often had higher diastolic blood pressure. This is the pressure in your arteries when your heart is resting between beats. These people were also more likely to have heart disease. That means the shape of your eye’s blood vessels could be giving doctors important clues about your heart health.
This research adds a new piece to the puzzle of how heart disease and high blood pressure develop. It shows that our genes may shape the risk of these diseases in ways we can now begin to understand better. In the future, this kind of knowledge might help scientists create new treatments or find problems earlier.
The study was led by Professor Christopher Owen and was published in the journal PLOS Genetics. It also connects with other studies showing that small lifestyle changes can make a difference in blood pressure and heart health.
For example, frequent naps have been linked to higher blood pressure, while drinking beetroot juice can help lower it. Other research has found that zinc may protect against dying from heart disease, and keeping blood pressure tightly controlled can prevent damage to the heart.
This research reminds us that our eyes don’t just help us see—they may also help us understand what’s happening deep inside our bodies.
If you care about heart disease, please read studies that herbal supplements could harm your heart rhythm, and how eating eggs can help reduce heart disease risk.
For more health information, please see recent studies that apple juice could benefit your heart health, and results showing yogurt may help lower the death risks in heart disease.
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