Eye health is closely linked to whole-body health—and smoking cigarettes carries risks for both.
At a national level, cigarette smoking has a significant—and negative—impact on public health. Tobacco smoke can cause or worsen a wide range of health conditions, both for smokers themselves and for people exposed secondhand. Roughly one in 20 Americans currently lives with a disease caused by smoking, such as lung disease or cancer, but the addictive properties of tobacco make quitting a challenge.
What does this have to do with your eyes? A surprising amount: the eyes are delicate, and many non-eye health conditions can cause symptoms in your eyes or impact your vision. Smoking can contribute to illnesses like heart disease and Type 2 diabetes, both of which have well-known potential eye complications. But cigarette smoke can also contribute more directly to eye health risks as well, increasing your likelihood for several eye-specific conditions—most notably, cataracts and macular degeneration.
Whether you smoke yourself or spend time around people who do, it’s important to be aware of the ways that exposure can change your health risks. Here’s what you need to know.
Smoking-related diseases cause eye damage
Smoking cigarettes can harm nearly every organ in the body, and can cause many different kinds of health conditions. Plenty of those conditions can have additional eye-related complications, including:
Eye stroke: Heart disease from smoking can result in poor circulation, which causes clots and reduced blood flow. The eyes contain a high number of tiny blood vessels and receive a lot of blood flow, especially to the retina: the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye. If vessels in the retina are blocked by a clot or don’t receive enough blood, sections of the retina can die, resulting in vision loss.
Diabetic retinopathy: Smoking can make it harder for patients to control their Type 2 diabetes, putting them at greater risk for diabetic retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is one of the leading causes of blindness worldwide, and occurs when blood vessels in the retina leak and cause scarring.
Glaucoma: High pressure inside the eye itself can damage the nerve that transmits information from the eye to the brain. This condition is called glaucoma, and high blood pressure or hypertension is a major risk factor. The nicotine in cigarettes causes blood pressure to spike, and contributes to sustained high blood pressure overall.
Smoking can also damage eyes directly
The toxins in cigarettes can also cause more direct damage to the sensitive tissues in the eyes. These harmful chemicals can reach the retina and the lens through the bloodstream, or travel through the air to the surface of the eye, causing several conditions:
Dry eyes: Smoke of any kind is made up of small solid particles, which irritate the membranes on and around the eyes and may result in dry eye symptoms. Rubbing irritated eyes is always a risk for damage or infection, but when the eye is dry, you are more likely to cause scratches on its surface. These can grow into ulcers or infections that could create permanent scars.
Cataracts: As we get older, proteins in the eye’s lens start to break down and cause cloudy spots, called cataracts. Cataracts are a common part of aging, but they’re not guaranteed—and people who smoke are two to three times more likely to experience them. It’s possible to manage the effects of cataracts with lifestyle changes, but the only way to remove them is with surgery.
Macular degeneration: The macula is the part of the retina that sees straight ahead and handles sharp detail. Damage to this part of the eye is common with age, which is why you’ll often hear this condition called age-related macular degeneration, or AMD. As AMD progresses, vision becomes blurry in the center of your field of view. AMD can’t be reversed, but it can be managed, and its progress can be slowed.
Exposure to tobacco smoke increases the risk of developing AMD, however, making it roughly three times as likely for smokers themselves, and doubling the odds for people exposed secondhand. Smoking also increases the risk of developing AMD at an earlier age than nonsmokers.
Protect your vision with healthy habits
The most straightforward way to avoid smoking-related eye disease is not to smoke—either by not starting, or if you already smoke, by quitting. Taking good care of your whole body with diet and exercise as well as wearing eye protection where appropriate will help you maintain the health of your eyes and keep your vision strong for longer.
Protect your eyes by:
- Wearing good quality, UV-shielding sunglasses
- Including eye-healthy foods in your diet
- Exercising regularly
- Using the right protective equipment for sports (or for solar eclipses!)
- Getting a regular eye exam
Given how many health conditions and environmental factors can affect our eyes, regular eye exams are essential—especially if you’re already entitled to them through your vision insurance benefits. An eye exam can catch early symptoms of both eye diseases and non-eye-related health problems, giving you the chance to start managing them early. And even if your eyes are healthy now, establishing a baseline makes it easier for you and your care provider to spot changes in the future.
Knowing your risks is a crucial first step to staying healthy.
Whatever your relationship to smoking may be, you deserve access to quality vision care—and at Heritage, our mission is to make world-class care as accessible as possible. Together with a trusted care provider, you’ll be able to make informed decisions about your own health and manage any vision changes that may come.
Heritage’s handpicked network of providers spans all 50 states, and our provider search tool makes it easy to find one in your area. If you’re not already a member of our Heritage family, consider investing in your health with an individual or family plan today.