Potential Role of Exercise in Retinal Health

For many patients suffering vision loss due to retinal degeneration, the potential exists for therapeutic intervention to halt or delay disease progression. Proposed molecular, pharmacological, and surgical treatments are expensive and complicated. Finding low-cost interventions to sustain vision and thereby quality of life is vitally important. This chapter reviews findings from animal model and human subject studies indicating that physical exercise has direct, beneficial effects on regions of the central nervous system and is protective against neurodegenerative disease, including recent data from animal models showing similar effects for retina and vision. Potential local and systemic mechanistic pathways for exercise-induced retinal neuroprotection are discussed.