In a new study, researchers found heavy smoking could harm people’s color vision.
The study was conducted by researchers from the Perception, Neuroscience and Behavior Laboratory in Brazil.
Currently, about 34.3 million adults in the U.S. smoke cigarettes and that more than 16 million people suffer from a smoking-related disease.
Previous studies have shown that cigarette smoke consists of numerous compounds that are harmful to health.
Smoking has been linked to a reduction in the thickness of brain layers and brain lesions.
Some brain areas, like the frontal lobe, could be affected.
Frontal lobe plays an important role in voluntary movement and control of thinking.
Smoking is also linked to a decrease in activity in the area of the brain that controls vision.
In this study, the team examined 71 healthy people who smoked fewer than 15 cigarettes in their lives and 63 people who smoke more than 20 cigarettes a day.
All of the 63 smokers have tobacco addiction and say they have not tried to quit smoking.
The researchers tested these people’s vision with standard visual acuity charts and found their visions were normal.
After that, the team examined how participants discriminated contrast levels (subtle differences in shading) and colors while seated 59 inches from a 19-inch cathode-ray tube monitor.
They found there were big changes in the smokers’ red-green and blue-yellow color vision.
In addition, heavy smokers showed less ability to discriminate contrasts and colors.
The findings suggest that using substances with neurotoxic chemicals continuously, such as those in cigarettes, may lead to overall color vision loss.
The results are in line with previous findings that long-term smoking is a big risk factor for age-related macular degeneration and lens yellowing and inflammation.
Although this study does not provide a physiological explanation for the results, the researchers suggest nicotine and smoking harm the vascular system and they also damage blood vessels and neurons in the retina.
In the future, the team may examine visual processing impairments in other groups of people that have a heavy smoking habit.
One author of the study is Steven Silverstein, director of research at Rutgers University Behavioral Health Care.
The study is published in Psychiatry Research.
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Further reading: Psychiatry Research.
