Eye Photos Might Offer Early Warning Of Chronic Health Problems, AI Study Finds

Key TakeawaysA person’s eye health might be a red flag for chronic health problemsRetinas with advanced aging were linked to chronic diseasesPeople with diabetes, heart disease or a history of stroke had retinas older than they should have been.FRIDAY, April 24, 2026 (HealthDay News) — The eyes are the windows not only to the soul, but also to a person’s health, a new study says.Premature aging of the retina could be a red flag for major diseases like diabetes or heart disease, researchers recently reported in the journal Communications Medicine.They found that people had a higher risk of chronic disease if they had advanced aging of their retinas — the light-sensitive layer of cells that lines the back wall of the eye.For the study, researchers trained an artificial intelligence (AI) model to estimate the wear-and-tear age of a person’s retina based on fundus images, which are photos of the eye’s back inner wall.AI analysis of these photos could be used to help detect these diseases during regular check-ups, researchers said."Fundus images are non-invasive photos of the eye taken as part of regular health check-ups — so no additional work is needed," senior researcher Toru Nakazawa, a professor at Tohoku University in Japan, said in a news release. "Our model would be a nearly frictionless addition to a clinician's typical workflow."For the new study, researchers trained the AI model to assess retinal age using more than 50,000 fundus images. A person’s retina can be older than their actual calendar age, if retinal aging is accelerated by unhealthy behaviors or disease.The AI model became good at accurately predicting a person’s actual age based on their retina, but researchers found there was a larger gap between retinal age and calendar age for some people.Analysis showed that people with diabetes, heart disease or a history of stroke tended to have a significantly larger gap between their retinal and calendar age. The retinas of these people appeared older than expected."We are already planning a study that follows a cohort of over 10,000 individuals with continuous three-year follow-up to examine whether retinal age-related signals are associated with the future development of cardiovascular and other systemic diseases," Nakazawa said.More informationThe Cleveland Clinic has more on fundus photography.SOURCE: Tohoku University, news release, April 21, 2026 .What This Means For YouIn the future, photos of the eye’s interior might help doctors detect chronic diseases..Sign up for our weekly HealthDay newsletter

Eye Photos Might Offer Early Warning Of Chronic Health Problems, AI Study Finds

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