Vitreous floaters are an age-related phenomenon that develops in the aging of vitreous humor as we all get older or at least that’s what we’re led to believe now in the last 20 years of being an optometrist. I’ve never come across so many young people or been aware of so many young people talking about vitreous floaters than I have in the short period of starting this YouTube channel. So the question is, is this a new phenomenon or is it just the way things have always been? I’ve got some thoughts on it.
Since starting this channel I’ve had a growing number of young people that have messaged me with the fact that they are distressed to be developing and having to live with the condition of vitreous eye floaters as an optometrist that has eye floaters myself, I am very much aware and can relate to the condition and just how distressing it is.
There seems to be a growing number of young people that have thought just by looking around at some of the new Facebook groups that are popping up with so many topical issues and discussions on vitreous floaters, it doesn’t take long to realize that most of the participants in these groups are young people and I’m talking about people of age 20 and perhaps a little bit less.
So what’s going on?
Well, the common thinking is that vitreous floaters develop at a young age and may be due to head trauma from sports or accidents, causing a premature breakup of the vitreous humor and that then leads to the vitreous be more fluid and therefore prone to vitreous eye floaters developing early, however, as I’ve spent more time studying the vitreous and also the significant phenomenon of my eye floaters in younger people, I can’t want to propose another possibility, and that’s what we’re going to do in this blog post.
I won’t be doing a big recap of what eye floaters, for more information on that, then please check out my previous videos on that below.
My eye floaters playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…
The space inside the eyes filled with a fluid that we call the vitreous humor and this is the site where floaters form and where they also stay and the younger eye, this fluid is like a firm gel that doesn’t move around.
The vitreous, as we call it, is made up of 99% water and the remaining 1% is a combination of collagen filaments of vitreous cells and other supporting molecules. I believe that the secret to what is going on to cause floaters in the eye lies in the composition of this 1% of vitreous that is not water. From my research, it appears that the content of the 1% non-water part of the vitreous body or the vitreous humor plays a significant part in supporting the integrity of the vitreous body to stop the formation of floaters through the clumping together of collagen filaments.
So what’s in this 1% non-water component of the vitreous body?
Well, as I said earlier, it’s made up of collagen filaments that are superfine vitreous cells, but also contain hyaluronic acid and some other supporting cells. It is the collagen filaments in the vitreous body that causes eye floaters
when they clump together or stick together to cause noticeable clumps that then move around.
However, when everything is working as it should and the vitreous body is nice and firm, no floaters will be seen because although you have collagen filaments naturally in the vitreous, the chemical makeup of the vitreous humor is believed to cause the collagen filaments to be spaced out nicely so that they don’t stick together, they don’t come together to form these bigger fibres, which then cast shadows on the retina that we then go and perceive as floaters.
In my research, hyaluronic acid appears to be the holy grail, if you like, that makes the difference between your vitreous being nice and firm, firm semi-solid that leaves you free of floaters, or a more liquid suspension that leaves you with vitreous eye floaters.
So what is hyaluronic acid?
Well, firstly, it’s worth mentioning that they are from a family of molecules known as Mucopolysaccharides or to give them their more modern name, they are also called Glycosaminoglycan.
Mucopolysaccharides are large chains of sugar amino acid blocks that when they’re dispersed in the presence of water, effectively create mucus type of fluids. So the largest amount of these are found in human skin, in the connective tissue and also in the eyes, the main function of it is to retain water, to keep the area nice and hydrated and moistured.
It’s also why the cosmetic industry, for example, uses a huge amount of hyaluronic acid in skincare products and some of the best and the latest dry eye products use a form of hydraulic acid called sodium chlorinate to keep your eyes and your skin lubricated and well moisturized. When the vitreous of the eye, hyaluronic acid even in small amounts like there is appears to be critical to keeping everything nice and firm and keeping it a semi-solid gel.
The vitreous cells are located at the outer edges close to the retina and 90% of these are a type of cell that we call Hyalocytes or the Hyalocytes of Balazs.
After the work of Balazs in 1968, Hyalocytes in the vitreous are unique amongst other similar cells in the body and therefore capability is not yet clear. However, the work of Balazs suggests that the vitreous hyalocytes are responsible for contributing to the breakdown and the renewal of hyaluronic acid in the vitreous.
Is critical to my thinking about what might be going on to cause floaters in the younger person’s eye and I’ll summarize my thinking very shortly.
The remaining 10% of vitreous cells, which are also found at specific points in the outer edges of the vitreous, are called fibrocytes and also neuroglial cells.
Fibrocytes are likely to be inactive cells that once helped to produce the tissues that form the eye.
Neuroglial cells are likely to have played a part and may still play a part in the metabolic role and nutrition between the nerves and blood vessels in the eye.
Conclusion and summary
I my thinking, I suspect that the presence of hyaluronic acid is critical to the presence of vitreous eye floaters, as we age may be the case that knows hyalocytes cells in the vitreous start to fail to produce fresh supplies of hyaluronic acid and also to remove old hyaluronic acid, as a result of that, the regular vitreous starts to lose its semi-solid mucus type form and then we’ll start to separate from the water mixture, he makes the vitreous more fluid.
The nicely spaced out vitreous collagen fibers may then now start to clump and stick together to form bigger strands and specks and as these clumps swim in the vitreous in which is now the more mobile, this causes collagen fibres to cast shadows on the back of the eye, which we perceive as floaters, that’s all very well in the case of the aging eye.
But what’s going on in the young person’s eye?
Well, I suspect that the same thing is happening, but for some reason, this is happening a lot earlier, so the question is, could something be interfering with the normal functioning of these vitreous hyalocyte cells, causing them to fail a lot earlier? And if so, what is going on? What is causing it?
I’m not going to attempt to answer the question directly, because, in all honesty, I don’t know but I do think that vision science, a community at large needs to consider whether the things like the national diet, electromagnetic radiation, blue light from computer screens, etc. and so many other factors could be playing a part in this.
Now, unfortunately, there are not too many people doing this kind of research out there and things probably haven’t moved on too much from a research point of view from when I did my undergraduate dissertation research on the effect of mobile phones on the visual system, some 20 years ago now, nevertheless, there is hope out there.
Some people are doing research into the vitreous eye floaters and trying to find cures for it, which I hope to bring you more information in forthcoming videos, so please make sure you don’t miss it.
The question for you is just let me know in the comments section below, what do you think is causing so many young people to develop eye floaters? What are your thoughts on that and what’s your theory? I’m sure many people out there have their suspicions as well.
Thank you for reading and until the next one,
Take care.
