Published 20:36 IST, September 4th 2019
Teen boy who survived on French fries, Pringles, bread loses sight
A 17-year-old boy, who survived entirely on french fries, Pringles and bread suffered permanent blindness. He suffered from nutritional optic neuropathy.
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While most people would find food options like French fries, Pringles and white bre irresistible, a teenr in United States crossed all limitations when it comes to treating taste buds. boy eventually paid price by losing his eyesight.
Dangers of junk diet
A group of scientists from University of Bristol, examined case of boy to warn people about dangers of having poor eating habits. According to him, ever since Elementary School, he only ate fries from fish and chip shop, Pringles potato chips, white bre and slices of processed ham and saus.
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boy often complained about breathlessness and tiredness. Due to excessive tiredness, patient h visited doctor for first time at of 14. He wasn’t on any medications and showed signs of malnutrition, BMI and height reports were rmal too.
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boy was later given vitamin B12 injections and a proper diet plan, soon after medics discovered that patient h very low vitamin B12 levels and suffered from anemia. Following this, boy showed signs of hearing loss and blurred vision, which left doctors in a state of confusion as y couldn’t figure out reason.
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Permanent blindness
By time boy was 17-year-old, vision worsened to point of permanent blindness. Doctors discovered deficiency of vitamin B12, copper, Vitamin D, and selenium levels. He also h a high zinc level and low bone density. After thoroughly examining case, researchers concluded that boy suffered from nutritional optic neuropathy, a dysfunction of optic nerve.
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dysfunction occurs due to recurring bowel problems and intake of medications that interferes with absorption process of nutrients in intestine.
Denize Atan, an ophthalmologist at Bristol Medical University and Eye hospital said that human vision has a huge impact on quality of life, education, employment, social interactions and mental health and that case of this teenr clearly represents how our diet affects our vision and physical health.
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19:03 IST, September 4th 2019