Scientists from the University of California at Berkeley explained their latest finding on Thursday, for which a drug used since the 1950s to control alcoholism it can help treat cases of retinal degeneration that lead to blindness.
According to the most recent data from the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 36 million people worldwide are completely blind, while another 253 million have some type of visual impairment.
One of the processes that most commonly lead to retinal degeneration and, ultimately, blindness, occurs when cells in the retina become overactive, which causes in the patient a kind of flashes in the mind.
According to researcher Michael Telias, who was a postdoctoral fellow at Berkeley and is now a professor at the University of Rochester (New York), these flashes can be blocked by a drug used since the 50s of the last century to treat cases of alcoholism, el Disulfiram.
“Disulfiram blocks an enzyme that synthesizes retinoic acid, which is the culprit in this type of retinal degenerative disease “said the researcher, who worked on this project together with Professor Richard Kramer.
The researchers treated some mice with the drug and observed how they only lost vision between 15% and 30% of the cases, while those who had not received Disulfiram developed varying degrees of blindness in 90% of the cases.
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