The Institut de la Màcula i de la Retina, a Top Doctors center of excellence based at the Teknon Medical Center in Barcelona, recently carried out the campaign “Smoking leaves you in the dark” with the aim of showing the population the problems that smoking causes to health, specifically to vision. The campaign was part of the World No Tobacco Day, celebrated last Sunday, May 31.
Tobacco causes 6 million deaths a year worldwide. In Europe, 700,000 people die every year due to smoking, being the main cause of avoidable death in the European Union.
It causes numerous respiratory and cardiovascular problems, but studies have also shown that there is a significant association between high exposure to tobacco and the development of eye diseases such as glaucoma.
Smokers are four times more likely to suffer from blindness. Tobacco is responsible for 25% of all cases of macular degeneration, a disease that, to date, still has no effective treatment. Tobacco smoke causes smokers – active and passive – to double their risk of cataracts, which are the world’s leading cause of vision loss. Tobacco smoke kills, but it also causes vision loss.