A Southampton eye expert is calling for cigarettes to have new health warnings to highlight the dangers of blindness.
Although smokers are aware of the increased risks of cancer and heart disease, Professor Andrew Lotery from Southampton General Hospital believes more needs to be done to stress the link between smoking and sight loss.
It comes after new research revealed today that less than half of patients in Southampton were aware of the link but that 67 per cent would definitely or would be more likely to quit if testing for age-related macular degeneration found they had a higher risk of developing the disease.
Smokers are four times more likely to develop the condition compared to non-smokers and this is even higher if the patient has a high genetic risk factor.
Professor Lotery said: “I am calling for serious consideration of warnings on cigarette packets akin to those introduced in Australia in 2006 which led to a doubling of the number of requests to the country’s quitters service within a year.”
