A new year eye-health checklist worth actually doing

January produces a great deal of health advice, most of which is forgotten by February. This is a short list, restricted to things with evidence behind them and a reasonable chance of being done.

Six worth doing

1. Book the examination you have been postponing

If it has been more than two years — or more than one, if you are over forty, diabetic, hypertensive, or have glaucoma in the family — this is the item on the list that matters most. Everything else here is prevention at the margin. An examination is the thing that finds what is already happening.

2. Find out whether glaucoma runs in your family

It is a straightforward question to put to your parents and siblings, and the answer changes your risk substantially. People of African descent have a higher baseline risk, earlier onset, and faster progression. A positive family history moves screening from "sensible" to "now".

3. Wear sunglasses that actually block UV

Cumulative ultraviolet exposure contributes to cataract and to pterygium — the fleshy growth across the surface of the eye that is notably common in this climate. Lagos sits close to the equator with high year-round UV. Dark lenses without UV protection are worse than none at all, because the darkness opens your pupil wider and lets more ultraviolet in. Look for lenses certified to block UV400, and prefer a wraparound shape and a wide-brimmed hat.

4. Get blood pressure and blood sugar checked

Both damage the retina, both are common, both are frequently undiagnosed, and both are treatable. An eye examination can reveal either — but not knowing until your optometrist tells you is a slow route to finding out.

5. If you smoke, this is the eye argument

Smoking roughly doubles the risk of age-related macular degeneration and substantially raises the risk of cataract. It is also among the strongest risk factors for thyroid eye disease. These are additions to a list you already know; they are not usually on it.

6. Take the outdoor point seriously for your children

Time outdoors protects children against becoming short-sighted, consistently across a large body of research. Around two hours a day. In practice this is a scheduling decision more than a health decision — but it is the one preventive measure available to every family at no cost.

Three that do less than claimed

Carrots

Vitamin A deficiency genuinely causes night blindness and, in severe cases, corneal damage — and it remains a real problem in parts of Nigeria, particularly among young children. But if you are not deficient, eating more carrots does not improve your eyesight. The wartime story that popularised the idea was deliberate misdirection, and it has outlived the war by eighty years.

Blue-light spectacle coatings

Trials have not shown them to reduce eye strain compared with ordinary lenses. If screen use is leaving your eyes sore, the causes worth addressing are reduced blinking, an unbroken focusing effort, and an uncorrected prescription. If your concern is sleep, reducing evening screen use does more than a coating.

Eye exercises to remove your prescription

Vision therapy is a legitimate, prescribed treatment for specific binocular vision disorders. It does not change the length of your eye, and nothing marketed online will eliminate short-sightedness, long-sightedness or astigmatism.

One thing not to do

Do not put anything in your eye that was not prescribed for it. Breast milk, herbal preparations, urine, sugar solutions, and leftover drops from someone else's prescription all turn up regularly in Lagos clinics, usually attached to an infection or a corneal ulcer that was avoidable. Steroid drops in particular, used without supervision, can raise eye pressure and accelerate cataract, and can turn a minor infection into a sight-threatening one.

If your eye is sore, red, or has something in it, see someone. That is the whole of the advice.