Female mouse tears contain an anti-aggression pheromoneFebruary 17, 2020Fishman comments: Super interesting article on the effects of female mouse tear fluid on male behavior. The authors found that female tears contain a factor that strongly inhibits inter-male aggression. Cavaliere, R.M., Silvotti, L., Percudani, R. et al. Female mouse tears contain an anti-aggression pheromone. Sci Rep 10, 2510 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-59293-9[...]Read More
Thinking of Dry Eye as a Systemic DiseaseFebruary 9, 2020Dry eye is often a sign of chronic inflammatory systemic disease. It is crucial that the when evaluating and treating patients for dry eye, that we take a step back from the slit lamp and focus on systemic inflammatory etiologies. [videopress CRNOwl5N] Read More
How treating dry eye disease could save your patient’s lifeFebruary 9, 2020One of the most important opportunities that we have as ophthalmologists is identifying systemic disease through the eye exam. Sometimes, we can actually improve a person's systemic health by treating eye disease. In this short video clip from a presentation in Bermuda, Dr. Fishman explains how treating dry eye disease[...]Read More
Mmp-9 positive : ChalazionFebruary 6, 2020Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are a group of enzymes that in concert are responsible for the degradation of most extracellular matrix proteins during organogenesis, growth and normal tissue turnover. Presence of MMP-9 in the tear film indicates an inflammatory process. The MMP-9 detector shown below is a nice way to track[...]Read More
Death by IPLJanuary 29, 2020Fishman comments: Our paper is the first to show direct evidence of "Demodex Death by IPL" using live video microscopy. Honored to collaborate on this important work with Dr. Periman (aka @dryeyemaster) and Dr. Shah (@sfgotox). Photobiomodul Photomed Laser Surg. 2020 Jan 27. doi: 10.1089/photob.2019.4737. [Epub ahead of print] Real-Time[...]Read More
Dietary restriction increases protective gut bacteria to rescue lethal methotrexate-induced intestinal toxicityJanuary 27, 2020Fishman comments: Methotrexate is a commonly used drug to treat various ocular autoimmune conditions including uveitis and scleritis. Unfortunately, GI side effects are a problem. This is a nice paper exploring the possibility of reducing GI toxicity by increasing the protective intestinal microbiota. Hopefully, we will continue to understand the[...]Read More
How I approach the “Hey Doc, these glasses don’t work” – Part I , opticsJanuary 25, 2020This is a very common comment that eye care professionals hear from their patients and thus an excellent opportunity to unpack many important issues in ophthalmology and optometry. I am going to break this into several blog posts and part (I) will start with optics. Future blog posts will focus[...]Read More
To plug or not to plug, that is the questionJanuary 24, 2020The American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) publishes guidelines called preferred practice patterns (PPP). In the staged management of dry eye disease as per the PPP, punctal occlusion (plugs) for dry eye disease has been a level II (step 2) option for many years. It has been an excellent solution for[...]Read More
Comparative portrayal of ocular surface microbe with and without dry eyeJanuary 23, 2020Fishman comments: From an analytical chemistry standpoint, the ocular microbiome is an extremely complex environment to measure. This work is interesting and adds to our understanding of the impact of the ocular microbiome and dry eye disease. We have a long way to go to truly understand these interactions. My[...]Read More
Role of Resveratrol in Transmitochondrial AMD RPE CellsJanuary 17, 2020Fishman commentary: Neat finding by Dr. Kuppermann and colleagues. Role of Resveratrol in Transmitochondrial AMD RPE Cells by Sonali Nashine 1, Anthony B. Nesburn 1,2, Baruch D. Kuppermann 1 and Maria Cristina Kenney 1,3,* Nutrients 2020, 12(1), 159; https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12010159 Abstract Resveratrol is a phytoalexin, stilbenoid compound with antioxidant properties attributable to[...]Read More
