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How Does Smoking Affect The Eyes?
Question: How does smoking affect the eyes? Does it cause any eye disease?
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Brief Answer:
it lowers circulation
Detailed Answer:
It isn't directly toxic to the eye the way it is to the lung. And any condition in which having blood circulation is good and bad circulation is bad is going to be worse with smoking (which causes poor circulation).
Macular degeneration is worse with it. diabetic eye disease. If you have a corneal transplant it is almost 50% less likely to work if you smoke (but still works in most smokers). vessel occlusion more common in smokers http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000. worse wound healing (by one day) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000. probably contributes to cataract formation http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000
lower risk of pterygium (surfer's eye) if you smoke.
a lot of this is reversible if the damage can be reversed if someone stop smoking
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000
a lot of the vascular tone changes stop really fast with not smoking (weeks) but if you're already blind .. not so much.
it lowers circulation
Detailed Answer:
It isn't directly toxic to the eye the way it is to the lung. And any condition in which having blood circulation is good and bad circulation is bad is going to be worse with smoking (which causes poor circulation).
Macular degeneration is worse with it. diabetic eye disease. If you have a corneal transplant it is almost 50% less likely to work if you smoke (but still works in most smokers). vessel occlusion more common in smokers http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000. worse wound healing (by one day) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000. probably contributes to cataract formation http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000
lower risk of pterygium (surfer's eye) if you smoke.
a lot of this is reversible if the damage can be reversed if someone stop smoking
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/0000
a lot of the vascular tone changes stop really fast with not smoking (weeks) but if you're already blind .. not so much.
Note: In case of any other concern or query related to prevention, evaluation, diagnosis, treatment, or the recovery of persons with the any type of addiction or substance use, follow up with our Addiction Medicine Specialist. Click here to book a consultation now.
Above answer was peer-reviewed by :
Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar
Answered by
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