There are many different factors that influence the occurrence of dry eye. Insufficient production of tears, insufficient quality of the produced tears, blockage in the meibomian glands and many similar effects. Natural processes can also be included in these influences. For example, ageing. Our question is: Is there a relationship between aging and dry eye? Do we need to be more careful at an advanced age? Let’s evaluate this natural effect on dry eye and answer our question.
Does Aging Increase the Risk of Dry Eye?
When answering this question, we will proceed with examples from scientific research on the subject. Scientific results based on numerical data will provide us with a clearer answer.
Our research, which we will evaluate, was conducted in the United States and the results were published on pubmeb.
In the research conducted on women, 39,876 participants were evaluated. The results according to the long-term evaluation are just below.
What are the Results Obtained?
- In the research, it was determined that the incidence of dry eye increased with age. While 5.7% of women under 50 years of age had dry eye disease, this rate increased to 9.8% in women aged 75 years and over.
- The age-adjusted prevalence rate of dry eye syndrome was determined as 7.8%. It was also stated that this rate corresponds to 3.23 women over the age of 50 in the USA.
When the results are evaluated, age increases the risk of developing dry eye syndrome. Changing hormones during the aging process, the effect of these hormones on tear production and similar reasons are effective in achieving this result. The conclusion we draw from this is that we should pay more attention to eye care as we get older. You should not skip your regular care and regular doctor checks.
Source
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12888056/
