Bill Harvey: Smoking advice

People over the age of 40 are much more likely to see an eye care professional on a regular basis than a medical doctor.

This undeniable fact has fed the realisation that ECPs are ideally placed to offer advice on general health and wellbeing which may impact upon the long-term likelihood of people developing systemic disease, and not just those that directly affect the eye, such as diabetes.

Everyone knows that smoking is bad for them, I hear you cry, but evidence suggests that not all realise the strength of association with sight loss. There is also some indication that the threat of blindness may be a greater incentive to stop smoking than the threat of death itself.