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Review
. 2022 Jan 21;19(3):1186.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph19031186.

The Adverse Effects of Air Pollution on the Eye: A Review

Chia-Ching Lin  1   2 , Chien-Chih Chiu  3   4   5 , Po-Yen Lee  2   5 , Kuo-Jen Chen  1 , Chen-Xi He  3 , Sheng-Kai Hsu  3 , Kai-Chun Cheng  1   2   6
Affiliations
Review

The Adverse Effects of Air Pollution on the Eye: A Review

Chia-Ching Lin et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

Air pollution is inevitably the result of human civilization, industrialization, and globalization. It is composed of a mixture of gases and particles at harmful levels. Particulate matter (PM), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and carbon dioxides (CO2) are mainly generated from vehicle emissions and fuel consumption and are the main materials causing outdoor air pollution. Exposure to polluted outdoor air has been proven to be harmful to human eyes. On the other hand, indoor air pollution from environmental tobacco smoking, heating, cooking, or poor indoor ventilation is also related to several eye diseases, including conjunctivitis, glaucoma, cataracts, and age-related macular degeneration (AMD). In the past 30 years, no updated review has provided an overview of the impact of air pollution on the eye. We reviewed reports on air pollution and eye diseases in the last three decades in the PubMed database, Medline databases, and Google Scholar and discussed the effect of various outdoor and indoor pollutants on human eyes.

Keywords: air pollution; cataract; eye diseases; glaucoma; ocular surface diseases; retinal diseases.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The impact of air pollutants on eye diseases from outdoor and indoor sources.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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