Friday 3 February 2012

Did you know smoking can cause blindness?

More a subject for Chris Snowden (Velvet Glove Iron Fist) or Dick Puddlecote (Dick Puddlecote) - but anyway........


While waiting for a neighbour for whom I had provided a lift to our local doctor's surgery, I pondered all the notices and leaflets exhorting us not to do this that or the other for health reasons. One that caught my eye was headlined as this post and dealt with 'Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD). The leaflet advises that studies have shown that smoking more than doubles the risk of developing AMD and that smokers are more likely to suffer from all types of AMD. It then goes on to state that an estimated 53,900 UK residents over 69 may have AMD attributable to smoking. (my emphasis).


From the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) we are informed that: "At the moment, the exact cause for AMD is not known". Medical News Today advises: "In summary, while controlling for other factors, smoking appears to be related to the incidence and progression of AMD in our population". (again, my emphasis).


Cmon chaps, either smoking does cause AMD, or it appears to cause AMD, or the exact cause for AMD is not known. Just make up your damn mind - please?


Just asking..................




Afterthought: Scared to Death, a book by Richard North and Christopher Booker, had a chapter on smoking and is well worth a read - not just on this subject, either.

8 comments:

Groompy Tom said...

I know smoking causes blindness. I know for sure because my government tells me so every time I buy a pack. They seem pretty certain that smoking is the cause all Macular Degeneration too. Nanny knows best.

http://www.who.int/tobacco/healthwarningsdatabase/tobacco_medium_australia_blindness_02_b_en/en/index.html

PeterCharles said...

This is one of those problem, chicken or egg questions/assertions that abound in medicine.

It is well proven that smoking causes constriction of blood vessels and encourages/acerbates 'blood sludge', thickening of the blood, or at least the effects thereof, and thus it is reasonable to infer that smoking and AMD could be connected.

What is lacking, of course, is any reliable proof that in any specific case it was the cause of any AMD. In other words, it sounds likely, it looks likely, it tastes likely but you can't be sure it is. On the other hand everyone knows smoking is bad for you and everyone has a horror of going blind, so in today's frighten people to change behaviour for their own good culture, supposition becomes fact and correlation becomes cause. Just as it is in the case of CAGW, alcohol, sex, salt, sugar, fat, GM crops, pesticides, fertiliser, energy extraction, exercise and so on ad finitum.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

GT: Thanks for the link.

PC: "What is lacking, of course, is any reliable proof"

Isn't that the problem? Just another unfounded scare - and it becomes fact, to which I say spheroids!

Anonymous said...

Packing up the weed turned me blind. Put the patches on my eyes so i could not find em the only way they worked

Anonymous said...

"may","appears to be related"--it's time you read John Brignell's "Sorry Wrong Number"

WitteringsfromWitney said...

Anon: Added to my reading list.....

Chris Edwards said...

Can they actually prove smoking is linked to cancer? statistics show it to be so, just as I expect statistics to show smoking is linked to many nasty things but to medically prove is so hard for something that takes tens of years to occur. You sound like a smoker getting defensive! My mum contracted cervical cancer in her late 50s many years after my father died, and she did not replace him in any way. Talking to her consultant I asked if it was smoking related he told me that he has only ever seen this form of cancer in 2 groups, one was teens who smoked, were on the pill and screwed around a lot and older spinsters who smoked. He was certain it was solely down to smoking but had no proof other than empirical, and it seems that that is what this is saying.

WitteringsfromWitney said...

CE: In response to your first question - to my knowledge no, but then I am not an expert.

Same goes for second-hand and third-hand smoke - confirmed in Booker/North book Scared to Death.

That the proof seems empirical is reason enough to doubt that which we are told.