Smoking and AMD

"Smokers are twice as likely as non-smokers to lose their sight in later life, experts warn. "

"AMD Alliance UK and the Royal National Institute of the Blind are calling for specific warnings on cigarette packets."

"The link between age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and smoking is now as robust as that between smoking and lung cancer."

Pauline Edwards, 50, from Salford, has AMD after smoking most of her adult life. Pauline said: "I smoked for years. Now I have AMD, am partially sighted in one eye and am likely to go blind. When you smoke you cannot imagine what it is like to have lung cancer and especially when you are young the risk of dying earlier doesn't come into it.

I am a nurse, I saw people die from smoking-related diseases and that did not make me kick the habit. But if I had been told that I could lose my sight because of smoking I would have given up. I stopped the day I found out."

The testimonial from nurse Pauline Edwards speaks for itself. We are all afraid of going blind. And as she said, if she had realised that smoking caused an increased risk of losing her sight, she would have quit that same day.

 Any risk to our sight is a powerful incentive to minimise that particular risk.

The above testimony by courtesy of the bbc.co.uk

"Smoking is the only proven cause of AMD that people can do anything about."