Can Smoking effect the Thermoregulation of the eyes?

This article tries to understand the relationship between the practice of smoking and the process of thermoregulation in our body.

What is Smoking?

Smoking is inhalation and exhalation of fumes by burning tobacco in cigarettes, pipes and cigars.

What is Thermoregulation?

Homeostasis is the process where the body tries to maintain its steady state even though the environment around it changes. The change in the environment changes our body’s state too. This automatically triggers a mechanism which tries to restore the original state of the body back.
Thermoregulation is a type of Homeostasis , involving the regulation of the temperature of the body. Humans are called endothermic animals because our body maintains the temperature around 35 to 40 degree centigrade ( called the set point ) constantly and the mechanism responsible for maintaining this temperature is within the human body.

Effect of smoking on thermoregulation of eyes:

• 24 men between the age group of 19 to 28 years were considered. Thus we had data collected from 48 eyes.
• The standard temperature of eye balls of humans within this age group is 32 + / – 0.02 degrees centigrade.
• Before smoking the mean temperature of the eye balls of these men was 31.7 +/- 0.1 degrees centigrade.
• After smoking, it was recorded that there was a drop in the temperature of the eyeballs for 15 minutes and 30 minutes of smoking. And the optimum temperature of 32 + / – 0.02 degrees centigrade restored only after 90 minutes of smoking.
• In this way, smoking impairs the process of thermoregulation of the eyes.

If we do not learn our lessons , then this condition may lead to other complications of the eyes related to smoking like optic nerve atrophy, retinal degeneration, grave course of glaucoma etc.

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