Protect your sight, say goodbye to tobacco!

Tobacco use represents a serious threat to our ocular health and it can lead to or worsen certain ocular pathologies, reason why our specialists advise all smokers to quit.

Two of the most severe eye diseases associated to smoking are Age-related Macular Degeneration (AMD) and glaucoma.

• One of the risk factors to suffer AMD is tobacco use. The risk to suffer this pathology is 5 times higher in smokers.
• Glaucoma, tobacco use can cause failure of the aqueous humor drainage system, a very important system to keep ocular pressure stable, one of the main risk factors to suffer this pathology.

Moreover, smokers are more likely to suffer from eye dryness, due to tobacco toxic compounds that can cause irritation and ocular dryness. In fact, these chemical substances can also accelerate the degenerative process of the crystalline and, therefore, cause cataract. When it comes to the orbit area, statistics have shown that exophtalmos (bulging eyes) related pathologies, such as thyroid orbitopathy, are more present in young and smoker women. As we can see, while tobacco is not directly triggering, it worsen these diseases. Same happens to some skin degenerative processes, as tobacco use increases face dermis vulnerability, which is the most fragile and exposed part of the body.