Passive smoking also increases risk of senile macular degeneration

In the past, various researches have shown that smoking increases the risk of developing senile macular degeneration. According to a new study carried out by a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge in the UK, passive smoking is just as dangerous.

Published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, the results indicate that living with a smoker for five years doubles the risk of developing the disorder, and regular smoking triples it.

John Yates and colleagues studied 435 people affected by macular degeneration and 280 healthy people. They investigated their smoking habits and the way in which the disorder developed and discovered that the more a person smokes, the greater the risk that he or she , and those around them, will develop the disorder. Regularly smoking one or more packets of cigarettes a day for 40 years can almost triple the risk, whereas living with a smoker for at least five years can double it.

However, for people who have not smoked for 20 years or more, the risk is not very different from that for non-smokers.

(Source: Le Scienze)