During the golden age of cigarettes—sometime between the roaring twenties and early sixties, vintage ads featured doctors touting the many “health benefits” of smoking. Most of us now know enough about the harms of cigarette smoking to roll our eyes at that. It’s well known that smoking causes lung cancer.

Low vision generally means impaired vision, and it can happen whether you are young or old. Many people have low vision (meaning they can’t see well) due to hereditary conditions, eye diseases or eye injuries. Some people don’t see well at sunset with changing light and others have vision that deteriorates slowly as they age.

Did you know that the American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) estimates that more than 43 million Americans will eventually develop eye diseases? The most common eye problems are either refractive errors of the eyes or are age-related diseases. However, your daily habits can determine if you are at risk for developing eye diseases or not.

Color blindness affects more than 3 million Americans each year. Men are more prone to this condition than women. Even though millions of Americans are affected by it, not many know what it actually is. This condition is also known as “specific color vision deficiency (CVD)”, because there are different types of blindness when it comes to seeing colors.

Glaucoma is the name given to a group of eye conditions where the optic nerve is damaged at the point where it leaves the eye. Chronic glaucoma often has no symptoms and the eye may seem normal. It also isn’t painful and at first; your vision may seem normal. However, you will start to notice changes in your vision, especially your peripheral (side) vision.

You may have heard of nearsightedness and farsightedness before, but what are they really? Both are some of the most common forms of visual problems we encounter in our office and are very common among patients. Nearsightedness means that people can see objects clearly up close, but objects farther away are blurry. Farsightedness is its opposite as objects farther away will be clear, while those close are blurry.

You move water across your vision when you blink to wash away debris, stabilize your visual field, lubricate and protect against infection. What happens when you don’t produce enough tears though? Dry eye can become a serious problem, as damage to the cornea can occur without proper lubrication. We recommend using artificial tears as the primary treatment for dry eye.

There are dozens of conditions and diseases that could affect the eyes. How do you prevent eye diseases from forming? And how do you combat or slow the progression of eye conditions that you already have? According to the American Macular Degeneration Association, macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss. Certain actions can help prevent and slow the progression of macular and many other eye problems such as glaucoma and cataracts. Knowledge and prevention always key when it comes to eye health though.