Avoiding or quitting smoking is one of the best investments you can make in your long-term eye health.  Smoking-even at a young age when your senior years seem far away- increases your future risks for cataracts and age related macular degeneration.  And the more a person smokes, the higher the risks.  The good news is that after people quit smoking, their risks for these eye diseases become almost as low as for people who never smoked.

Smoking also raises the risks for cardiovascular diseases that influence your eyes' health.  And tobacco smoke, including second-hand smoke, is an irritant that worsens dry eye syndrome, a very uncomfortable eye condition that is most common in post-menopausal females.

Smoking increases the risk of serious vision loss in people with other eye diseases.  And when women smoke during pregnancy they are more likely to give birth prematurely, putting their babies at higher risk for a potentially blinding disease called retinopathy of prematurity as well as other health problems.