This is in all the newspapers today, another reason why you shouldn't smoke:
http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?...3&id=258012004
Smoking 'increases risk of blindness'
DUNCAN ROBERTS
SMOKERS are four times as likely to become blind due to a common cause of sight problems but most remain unaware of the risks, a team of researchers warned today.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of adult blindness, results in severe and irreversible loss of central vision.
It is estimated there are 600 new cases of AMD diagnosed in Scotland a year - one sixth of which are thought to originate in the Lothians.
Researchers from the University of Manchester and Bolton Hospital NHS Trust estimated that one in five AMD cases in the UK may be attributable to smoking.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, they estimated that 53,900 people in the UK over the age of 69 may have visual impairment due to AMD linked to smoking. Of these, they said 17,800 were completely blind.
The researchers called for a sustained public health campaign to raise awareness of the link between smoking and blindness, as well as more commonly known risks such as cancer. They said there was evidence that giving up smoking helped reduce the risk of AMD in later life.
"Observational studies show a protective effect of smoking cessation on the development of AMD, as former smokers have an only slightly increased risk of AMD compared with never smokers," the authors wrote. Discussing awareness campaigns, the researchers said highlighting the finding that smokers develop AMD about ten years earlier than non-smokers "could also be a potent message in public awareness campaigns".
They concluded: "Evidence indicates that more than a quarter of all cases of AMD with blindness or visual impairment are attributable to current or past exposure to smoking. "Patients, health professionals, and the public will benefit from greater awareness of this causal association."
The team, led by consultant ophthalmic surgeon Simon Kelly, said research evaluating how smokers behave as a result of being informed about the risk of blindness could help inform public health campaigns. There are two forms of AMD, wet and dry. Only the wet form is treatable.