How smoking affects eye health

It is well documented that smoking can double your chances of losing your sight.1 Smoking causes harm to eye tissue and causes age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD affects about 500,000 people and is the leading cause of adult blindness. Approximately 54,000 people in the UK have AMD as a direct result of smoking, with 17,800 of these becoming completely blind.2

Smoking is the major modifiable risk factor for AMD in both ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ forms.3,4 Smoking at least doubles or triples the risk of developing AMD, which tends to develop earlier in smokers.5,6,7 Non-smokers living with smokers almost double their risk of developing AMD. Smoking causes oxidative stress and damages the retina, reduces blood flow in eye tissue and promotes ischaemia, hypoxia and micro-infarctions.8,9