Not a sound sleeper? Check your peepers. People with sleep apnea are almost twice as likely to develop glaucoma—an eye disease that can lead to blindness—within 5 years, finds new research from Taiwan.
While the study didn’t prove that sleep apnea (in which you experience pauses in breathing during the night, impairing sleep quality) causes the eye condition, the connection makes sense, says Andrew Iwach, M.D., a San Francisco-based glaucoma specialist. When you aren’t breathing at a normal rate, the loss of oxygen triggers damage to the optic nerves, or causes abnormal levels of gases in your blood—both of which could lead to glaucoma, Dr. Iwach says.
Most optometrists and opthamologists do glaucoma screenings automatically starting at age 40. But if you wear very thick glasses or the disease runs in your family, you might want to think about getting checked even earlier, starting in your 20s. Like most diseases, the sooner you catch glaucoma, the higher your chances of preventing permanent damage. And to squash your symptoms of sleep apnea, the advice is simple: maintain a healthy weight, don’t smoke, and exercise regularly.
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