In the midsummer, when the days are often dazzling with intense sunlight along with the sweltering heat, special attention should be paid to eye health. This is because UV rays can easily attack our eyes and cause damage to the visual cells. Strong ultraviolet rays can cause various skin diseases such as aging, skin cancer, pigmentation, and burns. In severe cases, it can also burn the cornea, conjunctiva, and retina of the eye, leading to the risk of blindness due to diseases such as cataracts and macular degeneration.
Cataract is a disease in which the lens of the eye becomes cloudy and opaque due to protein denaturation, which causes visual impairment. The risk of developing a cataract increases with age.
Besides aging, it is a disease that can be caused by diabetes, excessive smoking, drinking habits, or environmental factors that are excessively exposed to UV rays. Although there is no particular pain, as the lens becomes cloudy, the visual acuity deteriorates significantly, and objects such as overlapping or light scattering appear, and glare or visual loss is severe in bright places than in dark places.
Macular degeneration is a disease in which vision impairment occurs due to degeneration of the macula, a nerve tissue located in the center of the retina inside the eye. Aging, genetic factors, toxicity, and inflammation can act as causes, but it can be caused by accelerated aging due to prolonged exposure to UV rays, such as cataracts. The initial symptoms are when the visual acuity is poor, and when the physical condition is good, it is difficult to find an abnormality that is clear enough to restore the visual acuity. However, as the disease progresses, you may experience visual abnormalities in which the lines of objects are curved like wavy lines, or the center of objects may appear to have been erased because the center of the object does not appear black. In addition, if macular degeneration develops in one eye first, there is a high probability that macular degeneration will develop in the other eye within 5 years.
In order to protect the eyes from such diseases in summer, it is necessary to refrain from outdoor activities for a long time and reduce the time of exposure to sunlight. Always check the UV index, refrain from going out between 12 pm and 3 pm, when UV rays are strong, and if unavoidable, be sure to bring sunglasses that block UV rays, a wide hat, and a parasol. It may be helpful to eat foods rich in vitamins A and C, or spinach, broccoli, and peas, which are rich in lutein, so that eye diseases do not come easily.
In diseases such as cataracts and macular degeneration, the earlier the detection, the less damage to the visual cells, the higher the therapeutic effect. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure early detection through regular ophthalmic examinations, and to support steady treatment at the time of diagnosis.
