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Night blindness may exist from birth, or be caused by injury or malnutrition (for example, vitamin A deficiency). It can be described as insufficient adaptation to darkness. The most common cause of nyctalopia is retinitis pigmentosa , a disorder in which the rod cells in the retina gradually lose their ability to respond to the light.
Vitamin A plays a major role in phototransduction, so this deficiency impairs vision, often presenting with nyctalopia (night blindness). [1] In more severe VAD cases, it can progress to xerophthalmia, keratomalacia, and complete blindness. [1] Vitamin A deficiency is the leading cause of preventable childhood blindness worldwide and is a major ...
The causes are vitamin A deficiency during pregnancy, followed by low transfer of vitamin A during lactation and infant/child diets low in vitamin A or beta-carotene. [4] [5] The prevalence of pre-school age children who are blind due to vitamin A deficiency is lower than expected from incidence of new cases only because childhood vitamin A ...
The progressive nature of and lack of a definitive cure for retinitis pigmentosa contribute to the inevitably discouraging outlook for patients with this disease. While complete blindness is rare, the person's visual acuity and visual field will continue to decline as initial rod photoreceptor and later cone photoreceptor degradation proceeds. [49]
If detected early enough nyctalopia can be reversed and visual function can be regained; however; prolonged vitamin A deficiency can lead to permanent visual loss if left untreated. [55] Night blindness is especially prominent in developing countries due to malnutrition and therefore a lack of vitamin A in the diet. [55]
Vitamin A deficiency is a leading cause of preventable childhood blindness, particularly in developing countries. Vitamin A deficiency is defined as a serum (blood) concentration of less than 0.70 μmol/L while a severe deficiency is defined as less than 0.35 μmol/L, per the Centers of Disease Control National Health and Nutrition Examination ...
An early sign of vitamin A deficiency is night blindness. [6] Vitamin A in the form of retinoic acid is essential to normal epithelial cell functions. Severe vitamin A deficiency, common in infants and young children in southeast Asia causes xerophthalmia characterized by dryness of the conjunctival epithelium and cornea. Untreated ...
Vitamin deficiency is the condition of a long-term lack of a vitamin. When caused by not enough vitamin intake it is classified as a primary deficiency, whereas when due to an underlying disorder such as malabsorption it is called a secondary deficiency. An underlying disorder can have 2 main causes: