Chronic Smoking Impacts Vision

Smoking more than 20 cigarettes is associated with impaired vision, according to the results of a recent study.

While several previous studies have investigated the effects of heavy smoking on spatial and color vision, samples sizes have been small and some variables were not controlled, according to the recent study’s authors.

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To further explore this relationship, the researchers conducted a study involving 71 healthy controls and 63 individuals with tobacco addiction.

Contrast sensitivity for linear sine-wave gratings and color discrimination were used to assess visual processing. Overall, the researchers observed significant changes in smoking participants’ red-green and blue-yellow color vision, suggesting potential effects of consuming neurotoxic chemicals on overall color vision loss. Further, heavy smokers had reduced ability to discriminate contrasts and colors compared with those who did not smoke.

“This study consistently replicates and extended previous findings and showed that visual processing can be strongly associated with tobacco addiction. These results indicate that excessive use of cigarettes, or chronic exposure to their compounds, affects visual discrimination, supporting the existence of overall deficits in visual processing in tobacco addiction,” they concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Fernandes TP, Silverstein SM, Almeida NL, et al. Visual impairments in tobacco use disorder. Psychiatry Research. 2019. 271:60-67.