Happy New Year! If you are welcoming 2015 with a resolution to quit smoking, check out the article below and add it to your reasons why you should quit.
January is Glaucoma Awareness month. Ironically, glaucoma doesn’t have any symptoms to be aware of until permanent vision damage has already happened. To prevent the loss of vision, have your eyes examined regularly. There are measurements and tests we do during an eye exam that can detect glaucoma early. Early detection and treatment is the best way to prevent vision loss.
Glaucoma is a group of eye diseases in which the pressure inside the eye may or may not be elevated, but the optic nerve is damaged. If untreated, vision loss or blindness may occur.
Studies have shown that early detection and treatment of glaucoma, before it causes major vision loss, is the best way to control the disease. So, if you fall into one of the high-risk groups for the disease, make sure to have your eyes examined annually. Individuals at high risk for glaucoma include African Americans over the age of 40, everyone over 60 and people with a family history of glaucoma.
Quit Smoking
It is already known that smoking contributes to macular degeneration, but a new study shows that smoking causes damage to the retinal nerve fiber layer in much the same way that glaucoma does.
A total of 88 adults between the ages of 20 and 50 participated in the study: 44 had smoked at least one pack of cigarettes a day for more than 10 years, and 44 did not smoke. All were in good health and there were no significant differences in age, gender, refractive errors or eye pressure between the two groups.
Examinations of the subjects’ retinas revealed the mean thickness of the retinal nerve fiber layer of the smokers was significantly thinner than that of the non-smokers.
Make smoking cessation a priority for 2015.
Glaucoma is an eye disease in which the optic nerve is damaged causing permanent vision loss. The loss of vision is typically slow and gradual so most people are unaware of the problem.
Fast Facts
Worker honey bees have 5,500 lenses in each eye. They can also see polarized light patterns in the sky, which help them to navigate.
Smokers are four times more likely to go blind than non-smokers.
Reading in dim light can cause eye strain, but will not hurt your eyes permanently.
