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Smoking and eye health

This page provides information on the risks to your eye health and sight caused by smoking, and what support is available to help you stop.

Smoking and your eyes 

It is well documented that smoking can cause cancer and heart disease but the effects of smoking on eye health and sight is less known.

Research shows that smoking has been associated with increasing your risk of developing:

  • Age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which is the most common cause of sight loss in the UK. If you already have some form of the condition, research indicatesthat smoking may also be associated with progression to more advanced forms of AMD.
  • Cataract - particularly development of nuclear sclerosis, which is the most common type of age-related cataract.

Research has also highlighted that smoking may be a potential risk factor associated with developing glaucoma.

Smoking is a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It damages the heart and blood vessels all over the body, including those in the eye.

video transcript


I'm Luke Nicholson I'm a consultant ophthalmologist and I specialise in medical retina. Today is national no smoking day I believe it's the 40th anniversary.

Why I'm filming this video is that a lot has lot is known about smoking and its associated risk with our general health. The knowledge and awareness of smoking and its impact on our eye health, it's less well communicated.

So for example, in medical retina, we deal with macular degeneration, which is a condition that affects your central vision as we get older. Smoking has been shown to be associate with an increased risk of developing macular degeneration or even progressing macular degeneration. There are also other associations with thyroid eye disease and cataracts, where smoking is a known risk.

I think it's very important, of course, there are a lot of other risk factors to eye disease, but smoking is definitely one of them. So if someone does come up, and is not aware of it, I think that's where we need to play our part in educating and in raising the awareness of eye health and smoking.

If you like to quit smoking I recommend speaking to your GP or pharmacist. Or you can go to the NHS quit smoking website or download the associated app for free.

Help to stop smoking

It can be hard to quit smoking, but there is plenty of support available to help you.

  • Speak to your GP or pharmacy team who can offer advice and guidance on support and aids to help you cut down and stop, such as nicotine gum or patches;
  • Call the National Smokefree helpline on 0300 123 1044.

Quit smoking app

You can also download the free NHS Quit Smoking app, which gives you daily tips and support to encourage you.

Benefits to giving up

 As well as protecting your sight, cutting down or quitting smoking will give you many health benefits. Did you know?

  • After just two days of not smoking, a harmful gas called carbon monoxide will have left your blood;
  • After just 12 weeks, your blood will be pumping through to your heart and muscles much better;
  • After 9 months, your lungs will be working better and you will be breathing much easier;
  • In future years, you will have reduced your chances of developing heart disease or cancer.

Don’t feel alone in your journey to quitting. Remember, there are lots of people and resources to help you.