Protect your eyes this summer

UV exposure is one of the main causes of ocular problems, and can cause cataract formation. Cataracts are a form of eye damage in which loss of transparency in the lens of the eye clouds vision. Although curable with modern eye surgery, cataracts diminish the eyesight of millions of people each year.

Other kinds of eye damage include pterygia (tissue growth usually at the inner corner of the eyes), skin cancer around the eyes and degeneration of the macula (the part of the retina where visual perception is most acute) just to name a few. All of these problems may cause vision loss.

Did you know that wearing cheap sunglasses may be more harmful to your eyes than not wearing any sunglasses? When our eyes are exposed to sunlight, the pupil constricts to minimise the amount of light entering the eyes, resulting in less exposure to harmful UV rays. At night, the opposite happens, the pupils dilate (enlarge) to maximise the amount of light into the eyes and help us see better in low light conditions.

When we wear sunglasses at daytime, the light conditions behind the sunglasses are darker due to the dark tint of the lenses, so the pupils tend to dilate (enlarge). The problem now is that the natural protection mechanism of the constricting pupil does not work well and more light, and importantly more UV rays, enter the eyes.

That is why wearing cheap sunglasses without UV protection is worse than not wearing any sunglasses at all. Proper sunglasses should have UV protection against UVA, UVB, UVC and dangerous blue light. Sunglasses are still one of the most effective ways of preventing cataracts, macular degeneration and other ocular conditions – just make sure next time you purchase a pair, they have adequate UV protection.

You can have lenses that are impact resistant, change colour as light intensity changes (photochromatic), are hydrophobic so that they don’t fog up, have sport specific contrast lenses to bring out colours and even have scripted lenses that are polarized.

Here are some examples of specialised scripted sunglasses: