Is Smoking Cause Weak Eyesight And Blindness?

Smoking and Weak Eyesight

Smoking, weak eyesight, and blindness are direct links. And smoking vital cause of death in the general population.

According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) in India in 2021, tobacco use in any form is very common including:

• adults – 28.6%
• male population – 42.4%
• Females – 14.2

Smoking enhances two of the greatest threats to your eyesight – Macular degeneration (1)
Cataracts (2) leading causes of blindness (3).

Several studies have shown that cigarette smoke is highly toxic which is direct links to our eyes and causes vision loss.

Smoke generated over 4 to 5 thousand chemicals, when it burned, the best known of which is nicotine.

Nicotine is a highly addictive chemical that contains nitrogen, which is why is hard to quit smoking and any tobacco products.

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Does Smoking Cause Weak Eyesight And Blindness?

Yes, smoking is directly linked to eye illness, and there are two major causes of vision loss or blindness which include:

Cataract

It refers to a cloudy lens, located behind the colored part of your eye (iris), and leading cause of serious vision loss.

Smoking and cataracts have a link with higher levels of smoking increasing the risk of cataracts and their severity.

It is found that through oxidation smoking can change the cells of the lens.

However, Cigarette smoke contains cadmium (a highly toxic metal that causes oxidative damage) that can lead to blindness.

Macular Degeneration

It is an age-related problem with your retina, it occurs when a part of the retina called the macula is damaged.

AMD’s leading cause of severe visual impairment and blindness is directly accelerated by smoking.

According to CDC, AMD always begins in the dry form and sometimes progresses to the more advanced wet form.

Studies have shown that long-term smoking doubles the risk of AMD, and cause lens yellowing and inflammation.

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Eye Diseases Associated with Smoking

Dry eye

Smoking is a common trigger for dry eye, among other factors include environment, lifestyle, age, sex, medicine, and diseases.

Dry eye is estimated to affect 5%-35% of the worldwide population at various ages with increasing frequency (4)

Studies have shown the association between smoking and dry eye risk, which shows that smoking could increase the risk of dry eye.

This is because the conjunctiva mucosa is highly sensitive to airborne chemicals, and irritative gases that are contained in tobacco (5) (6).

Glaucoma

It is a group of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve and is often caused by abnormally high pressure in your eye.

One study found that cigarette smoking has been related to several eye diseases such as glaucoma (7) (8).

The report tells that it is the 2nd-leading cause of blindness worldwide and the major cause of irreversible blindness.

A large study found that smokers are at higher risk of developing glaucoma and it is associated even more with a heavy smoker.

Diabetic retinopathy

Anybody with diabetes is at risk of developing diabetic retinopathy. However, the risk is a higher person do smoking.

DRO affects the eyes and is caused by damage to the blood vessels of the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye (9).

Diabetes is a common disease where body sugar levels reached a higher stage, where you see a lot of complications inside your body.

Other causes of weak eyesight

There are some common reasons for weak eyesight in both smokers and non-smokers, which include:

• Spending Too Much Time On Mobile and Laptop screen
• low Water Intake
• work or study on Dim or Bright Light
• lack of sleep
• poor diet

If you see these signs then it could be a sign of weak eyesight including:

• Glare
• headache
• feel fatigued in eyes
• blur vision
• squinting
• water or dry eyes
• double vision
• sore or irritated eyes

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Can You Prevent Vision Loss By Stopping Smoking?

If you quit smoking, then definitely weak eyesight and the risk of blindness also be reduced among other eye problems.

Apart from quitting smoking other healthy habits may enhance the speed of recovery.

Several healthy habits may also help protect your eyes from the following eye disease include:

• regular exercise
• Maintain normal blood pressure and cholesterol level by finding the cause and working on it.
• Eat a healthy diet, and play a vital role in recovery from eye damage caused by smoke
• use eye drops and several medicines
• wear sunglasses to eyesight from sun UV-rays

Essential Tips

• Take a break after every 30 minutes, close your eyes, and sip water.
• whenever you are free, press points do exercise
• relax your eyes, rub your palms, and place on your eyes.
• whenever you go to the washroom, be sure to wash your eyes.

Make sure, to avoid spending time on mobile and computer if you really care about your eyes.

Weak Eyesight In Children

Nowadays children start spending more of their time on mobile and laptop screens from a very young age, due to this they wear glasses at a very young age.

Myopia is the most common refractive error seen in children (10).

Did you know, people wearing spectrum has increased 4 times in just 10 years, the reason found out to be is excessive exposure to computer and mobile phone.

Down Line

Smoking and weak eyesight and blindness are linked to each other due to the high toxicity contained in tobacco use.

Apart from smoking other factors also lead to eye issues including the environment, age, sex, lifestyle, medicine, and diseases.

Smoking enhances two of the greatest threats to your eyesight cataracts, and macular degeneration leading causes of blindness.