Smoking can cause blindness

It’s No Smoking Day tomorrow and Sheffield optometrist Alex Gage is alerting his patients to the potential dangers that smoking poses to eyesight. Alex said: “Smoking is the most consistently established modifiable risk factor for macular degeneration. A large growing pool of evidence confirms a significant association between smoking and macular degeneration. The risk of macular degeneration is two- to three-fold higher in current-smokers compared with never-smokers.” Public awareness about the risk of eye diseases associated with smoking is very low.