But will it make me go blind?

While most optical practitioners are well versed in the impact smoking can have on vision, this one-day conference - cleverly titled 'But will it make me go blind?' - shed light on other health-related choices, such as poor nutrition and excess alcohol consumption, and the ocular damage they can cause.

Ash Sharma, a Birmingham ophthalmologist, opened the conference with a talk on lifestyle choices and ocular disease. He highlighted the folly of unprotected sex with the examples of HIV/Aids and chlamydia. Advances in the treatment of HIV/Aids had dramatically changed the nature of the associated eye disease.