A British study, published in association with the Royal National Institute of the Blind in the latest issue of the journal Eye, points to a link between smoking and late life eyesight loss as conclusive as the link between smoking and lung cancer. The study that analyzes the instances of a condition known to affect close to half a million Britons namely age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and its correlation with smoking has provided the insight that smokers are twice more likely to lose sight with ageing.
Of the half a million AMD cases in Britain, as per the study about 54,000 owe the condition to their smoking habit. Insofar there have been 17 such AMD studies made by ophthalmologists in Britain with two thirds of them focusing on the link between smoking and the condition. A Bolton eye unit ophthalmic surgeon, Simon Kelly, suggested that all the studies provided evidence strong enough to point to smoking precipitating the condition of AMD. He also believed that the criteria of evaluation were similar to those used to prove the smoking habit’s link to lung cancer.
While British survey involved over a thousand respondents, only 7 per cent were aware of AMD affecting sight and were largely ignorant about the degenerative disease and the potential threat of smoking. The survey also found that smokers valued their sight so much that seven out of ten were willing to permanently quit smoking or at the least reduce the number of cigarettes once they knew the habit could affect their eyesight.
Age-related macular degeneration is known to be the most common cause of loss of sight in those over 55 years, with an occurrence of one in three among those over 75 years. It is a largely irreversible condition characterized by blurred vision, affecting the ability to read, drive and activities that need sharp vision. A difficult to treat degeneration, the condition eventually leads to blindness in the aged, affecting their already limited abilities to care for themselves.
Echoing these thought was 50-year old Pauline Edwards, from Greater Manchester, who had been a smoker for almost her entire adult life but believes she may have stopped if she had known of the habit’s ability to cause sight loss. She ruefully said, “I smoked for years. Now I have AMD, am partially sighted in one eye and am likely to go blind”. Adding why the smoking habit’s link to lung cancer was not enough to make her quit, “When you smoke you cannot imagine what it is…. and especially when you are young the risk of dying earlier doesn’t come into it. But, if I had been told that I could lose my sight, I would have given up. I stopped the day I found out”.
Steve Winyard, who has been actively campaigning about the need to increase awareness, said: “Smoking is the only proven cause of AMD that people can do anything about, yet people are not aware of the link and most people have not even heard of the condition”. The AMD Alliance of UK of which he is Chairman, suggests that as much as over 90 percent of the population is unaware of AMD affecting the eyes and that over 40 per cent of Britain’s 13 million smokers would even quit if they believed that their habit could cause loss of their eyesight.
Now as result of the heightened suggestion of the link by numerous studies, the Royal National Institute of the Blind is pressurizing the Government to commence new statutory warnings about the risk of AMD. Winyard said, “The message is simple; do not take up smoking and, if you do, stop”.
