News September

Obese People are Twice as Likely to go Blind

Obese people are twice as likely to go blind, according to an alarming new report.

The study, from the Royal National Institute of the Blind (RNIB), warns that millions of adults and children in the Britain are at risk of damaging or losing their sight because they are chronically overweight.

They are also more likely to develop debilitating conditions such as glaucoma and cataracts. The warning follows a predicted rise in the number of obese Britons.

By 2010, a third of adults and a fifth of children will be dangerously overweight, according to figures released last month by the Department of Health.

Experts are already warning that Britain is sitting on a public health 'timebomb' with millions of Britons storing up a whole lifetime of health problems, including heart disease, cancer and diabetes.

Obesity already causes the premature deaths of some 9,000 people every year and is estimated to cost the NHS up to £1billion annually.

RNIB eye health expert Barbara McLaughlan said research had shown that being obese increased the risk of developing conditions like diabetic retinopathy - a degenerative disease of the retina - glaucoma and cataracts.

Such conditions then carried an increased risk of permanently damaging the sight or even total blindness, she said.

Obese people are at double the risk of dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD) - one of the leading causes of irreversible visual loss - while those with a genetic predisposition to it have a risk 11 times higher than those of normal weight, she said.

Obese people are also up to 10 times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, and 60 per cent of all diabetics suffer diabetic retinopathy.

Miss McLaughlan added: "Obesity doubles the risk of cataracts and increases the risk of retinal vein occlusion (where veins that drain blood out of the eye become blocked) by four times.

"With a staggering ten million adults and two million children in the UK now considered to be obese, RNIB believes it is vital that people are made aware of the risks to their sight.

"Sight is the sense we most fear losing, but most people don't do nearly enough to look after their eyes.

"To safeguard sight we recommend people maintain a healthy weight, eat lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, take exercise to improve general health, don't smoke and most importantly have regular eye tests.

"Many thousands of people lose their sight each year through conditions that could have been treated if picked up early enough through an eye test."

According the RNIB, every day another 100 people in the UK will start to lose their sight.

There are currently around two million people in the UK suffering from sight problems.

The risk of sight loss through diabetes is also particularly high in people from ethnic minority backgrounds - Asian, African and African/Caribbean - who are four to five times more likely to develop diabetes, Miss McLaughlan added.

The report - Feeling great, looking good - is published as part of RNIB's Open Your Eyes campaign, which aims to end preventable sight loss by 2020 and was supported by Boots Opticians.

Source http://www.dailymail.co.uk/