No Eye Health Advantage Seen from Switching to e-Cigs, Vaping
Switching from cigarettes to e‑cigarettes or other noncombustible nicotine products does not protect eye health and may slightly increase risk of serious vision‑impairing diseases.Summary
A large Korean cohort study followed nearly 180,000 adults who had quit smoking between 2018 and 2019 and compared those who switched to noncombustible nicotine or tobacco products (NNTPs) with those who abstained entirely. Over an average of 4.6 years, 6,328 major vision‑impairing eye disease events were recorded, with incidence rates of 41.1 per 1,000 person‑years for quitters and 44.0 for switchers. The adjusted hazard ratio for switchers was 1.07, indicating a modest but statistically significant increase in risk, especially for diabetic retinopathy (HR 1.24) and refractive/accommodative disorders (HR 1.07). The authors argue that the increased risk likely reflects both microvascular effects of nicotine on the eye and functional changes such as accommodative dysfunction or ocular surface instability. They conclude that, contrary to the expectation that NNTPs might be safer for eye health, switching does not eliminate visual risk and that clinicians should counsel patients accordingly and monitor for eye disease in this population.
(Source：Google News)
