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According to a study published in the magazine, heavy smokers – those who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day – experience significant changes in the vision of red-green and blue-yellow colors and have a reduced ability to distinguish contrasts and colors. . Psychiatry Research.
Excessive use of cigarettes or chronic exposure to their compounds affects visual discrimination by supporting the existence of overall deficits in the visual treatment of tobacco dependence. Image credit: Free-Photos.
"Cigarette smoke is made up of many compounds harmful to health. It is related to a reduction in the thickness of the layers in the brain and to brain lesions involving areas such as the frontal lobe, which plays a role in the voluntary movement. thought control and decreased activity in the area of the brain that processes vision, "said co-author of the study, Dr. Steven Silverstein, director of research at the Behavioral Health Care of the Rutgers University.
"Previous studies had shown that long-term smoking doubled the risk of age-related macular degeneration and was a factor of yellowing and inflammation of the lenses."
"Our results indicate that excessive use of cigarettes or chronic exposure to their compounds affect visual discrimination, which reinforces the existence of overall deficits in the visual treatment of tobacco addiction."
The study included 71 healthy people who smoked less than 15 cigarettes in their lifetime and 63 people who smoked more than 20 cigarettes a day, were diagnosed with tobacco dependence and had not reported any attempt to Stop smoking.
Participants were between 25 and 45 years old and had normal or corrected vision, measured using standard visual acuity charts.
Dr. Silverstein and colleagues examined how participants distinguished contrast levels (subtle shading differences) and colors as they sat 59 inches from a 19-inch CRT monitor displaying stimuli while simultaneously monitoring both eyes.
The results indicated significant changes in the red-green and blue-yellow color vision of smokers, suggesting that the consumption of substances containing neurotoxic substances, such as those contained in cigarettes, may result in an overall loss of color vision.
They also found that heavy smokers had a reduced ability to distinguish contrasts and colors from nonsmokers.
"Since nicotine and smoking adversely affect the vascular system, our study suggests that they also damage the blood vessels and retinal neurons," said Dr. Silverstein.
"The results also suggest that research on visual impairments of visual processing in other groups of people, such as people with schizophrenia who often smoke a lot, should consider their smoking rate or independently examine smokers." and non-smokers. "
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Thiago P. Fernandes et al. 2019. Visual impairment in the smoking disorder. Psychiatry Research 271: 60-67; doi: 10.1016 / j.psyres.2018.11.024
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