Poor sleep can make you go blind: study

If you’re prone to not getting enough sleep, your eyesight may be in trouble.

A new study published in the journal BMJ Open found that poor sleep patterns can increase the risk of glaucoma.

Glaucoma — a common eye condition where the optic nerve that connects the eye to the brain is damaged — can lead to complete blindness if not treated early on. The condition is the leading cause of blindness and is expected to affect around 112 million people in the world by 2040, according to South West News Service.

Scientists studied 409,053 people from UK Biobank, a large-scale biomedical database, who were between 40 and 69 years old at the time of their recruitment for the study that took place between 2006 and 2010.

The participants provided details about their sleeping behaviors to the researchers who considered that information along with background variables such as age, sex, lifestyle, weight, ethnicity, education and location. Those who slept between seven and nine hours every day were classified as getting a healthy amount of sleep.

Researchers found 8,690 cases of glaucoma after 10.5 years of monitoring the participants.

Older males were more likely to be diagnosed with glaucoma. Those with glaucoma were also more likely to be smokers and have high blood pressure or diabetes.

The study, funded by the National Science Foundation of China, also found that sleeping too much or too little, insomnia, snoring and frequently experiencing tiredness during the day are more likely to develop glaucoma.

Those who snore had a 4% higher chance of getting the disease, and those who experienced sleepiness during the day had a 20% higher risk — and those in these categories were 10% more likely to actually have glaucoma.

A main factor the experts found for the study’s findings was pressure on the eye when lying down. Sleep apnea and snoring can cause a person to take in low levels of oxygen, which can damage the nerve in the eye and lead to glaucoma, according to SWNS. 

Insomnia is also a factor in developing glaucoma as the sleep hormones are affected. Depression and anxiety are also typically linked to insomnia and can increase internal pressure in the eye.

“As sleep behaviors are modifiable, these findings underscore the necessity of sleep intervention for individuals at high risk of glaucoma and potential ophthalmologic screening among individuals with chronic sleep problems to help prevent glaucoma,” study co-author Dr. Huan Song, a professor at West China Biomedical Big Data Center at West China Hospital Sichuan University, in Chengdu, China, said.

However, researchers admitted that it’s possible glaucoma itself influences one’s sleep patterns instead of the other way around.

The experts said that those with a greater risk of developing glaucoma should be offered “sleep interventions” and those with bad sleeping habits should get eye screenings.

“The findings underscore the need for sleep therapy in people at high risk of the disease as well as eye checks among those with chronic sleep disorders to check for early signs of glaucoma,” Song said.