Smoking and alcohol: a major cause of vision loss in retinitis pigmentosa
Everybody knows that smoking and excessive alcohol are injurious to health and causes severe and serious complications. Smoking is known to cause complications for heart, kidney, and lungs and causes many types of cancers. It also has a very bad impact on eyes. Smoking causes structural and functional damage in blood vessels, lens and retina. It increases the level of free radicals in body thus also increases generalized degeneration. This point becomes very important if you already have an eye disease like retinitis pigmentosa. One must quit smoking as early as possible to get the vision preserved in the eyes. The same thing applies to excessive use of alcohol also.
Ayurveda strictly recommends a satvik diet to increase the energy level of body. Alcohol increases the pitta levels in the body and excess of alcohol causes very bad impact on the metabolism. Oxidative stress is increased which damages the retina speedily. The bad impact of smoking and alcohol can be understood by following points:
- These things increase the oxidative stress in body which increases the free radicals resulting in speedy degeneration of retina of RP patients.
- Tobacco and alcohol may cause complications like high BP, diabetes, heart and liver diseases. The metabolic diseases will speed up the vision loss in patients of retinitis pigmentosa.
- These two things may increase the mental stress thus pushing the person towards depression.
Hence for a person who is suffering from retinitis pigmentosa and wants to vision to remain for a longer time must say farewell to tobacco and alcohol. Ayurveda treatments and a balanced and healthy lifestyle are really found to be effective in controlling retinitis pigmentosa in India.
