Contents:
- Medical Video: Smoking Causes Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema
- Is there really a connection between smoking and blindness?
- How can blindness be the impact of smoking?
- So, what can be done to prevent it?
Medical Video: Smoking Causes Cancer, Heart Disease, Emphysema
During this time, maybe you know that smoking is often associated with cancer, lung, heart disease, impotence, and death if you can't help. Not only that, it seems that the effects of other smoking can also make you lose sight.
Is there really a connection between smoking and blindness?
Smoking is often referred to as one of the "small" habits that have a big effect on the health of the body. This is stated for reasons that are strong enough because smoking can harm almost all organs of the body. Included in vision, which you may have never heard before.
Yes, a recent study conducted by researchers in the UK found that smokers have a 2-4 times greater risk of experiencing blindness due to age-related macular degeneration orage-related macular degeneration (AMD), than people who don't smoke. These findings are reported by WebMD.
Macular degeneration is an eye disorder that attacks the retina and can cause blindness. This disease is more often experienced by people over the age of 55 years and can cause blindness.
Previously, macular degeneration will reduce visual ability first by influencing visual acuity; blur the focus of view; to interfere with the ability to read, write, drive, and other activities that rely on visual work.
The study in the British Medical Journal, carried out on 400 adult patients treated in ophthalmology, general surgery, and orthopedic clinics. The participants were asked to answer a series of surveys regarding smoking and health.
The results showed that almost all participants knew very well what the effects of smoking were, but not all knew that smoking could pose a risk to vision resulting in blindness. In detail, only 1 in 10 people know that smoking can lead to blindness. While 9 other people thought that cigarettes only harm the heart and lungs.
How can blindness be the impact of smoking?
Eye surgeons at Royal Bolton Hospital and members of this research team, Dr. Simon P. Kelly, states that more than a quarter of cases of macular degeneration, whether those with visual impairments or even blindness, are caused by habits carried out in the present and past.
In short, the more cigarettes smoked and the longer a person spends smoking, the greater the risk for macular degeneration. It even leads to blindness. How can?
Look, free radicals contained in cigarettes trigger disruption of blood flow in the body. One of them is to the retina of the eye in which there are macular cells, thereby reducing the main function and causing damage.
Unfortunately, damage to the retina of the eye is too difficult to prevent by the antioxidants in the body which are usually obtained from daily food sources. Finally, blindness occurs.
So, what can be done to prevent it?
The only effective way to prevent blindness as a result of smoking is to stop smoking. Further explained by Dr. Simon P. Kelly, the risk of macular denegeration in people who have never smoked is indeed much lower than that of former smokers.
However, at least the former eye health of smokers will be better protected from severe damage if you stop smoking as early as possible. For example, people who have stopped smoking for a year have a 6.7 percent lower risk of macular degeneration. The risk of decline will also increase as you stop smoking.
Again, for those of you active smokers, the only possible way is to stop smoking. While for those of you who have never smoked, you should not try cigarettes at all if you want to avoid macular degeneration, blindness, cancer, and other chronic diseases caused by smoking.
