Q: I am a long-time smoker and have been having some serious vision problems lately. My wife tells me it could be caused by smoking. No way, I told her. What do you think?
A:Your wife is right! The results of a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the sooner smokers quit smoking, the less likely they are to develop cataracts.
Cataracts cause progressive clouding of the eye lens. As the lens becomes more opaque, seeing out of your eye becomes more difficult. Blindness could be the end result of cataracts. A surgical lens transplant will then be required to restore eyesight. Medical science has long known that smoking tobacco can increase the risk of developing cataracts. However, it was not well known whether stopping smoking would reduce the risk back toward non-smoking levels.
The study followed over 200,000 physicians for more than 13 years. A dose-response relationship was identified between smoking and cataracts. This means the chances of developing cataracts increases with every pack of cigarettes smoked.
People who stopped smoking had more than a 20 percent decreased chance of getting cataracts compared to current smokers. The researchers concluded that the sooner a smoker quits, the less likely it is he or she will develop cataracts. |
