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7 Reasons To Wear Sunglasses
These cool shades can protect you from headaches, wrinkles, even cancer.
Just as it can damage your skin, the sun can do a number on your eyes. Among other things, ultraviolet (UV) rays can increase your chances of contracting debilitating conditions like cataracts and even cancer.
Sunglasses are an efficient — and stylish — way to protect your peepers, as long as they provide 100 percent UVA and UVB protection. Here are 7 good reasons to wear them:
UVA and UVB
The sun emits ultraviolet (UV) radiation that can be harmful to our skin and eyes. UVA and UVB stand for different wavelengths that pose different risks to our body — including skin aging for UVA and sunburn for UVB. Both can increase your risk for skin cancer.
1. Not protecting your eyes on a sunny day could lead to eyestrain and headaches.
You may have experienced this on a particularly bright day. “If I don’t wear sunglasses, and you tell me to drive for an hour in sunny conditions, I will certainly have a headache,” says Alister Gibbons, M.D., an ophthalmologist at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute and an associate professor at the University of Miami. Squinting because of the light could fatigue your eyes, which might in turn lead to eyestrain and headaches.
2. You can get skin cancer on your eyelids, too.
The skin on your eyelids is the thinnest on your body, but it’s hard to protect it against the sun’s harmful rays. Putting sunscreen on your eyelids can lead to irritation or styes, Caracci says, which makes sunglasses a must. Protecting your eyelids with sunglasses could also slow your skin’s aging process and limit the formation of wrinkles.
3. The sun can cause small growths on your eyes.
These small bumps, called pingueculae and pterygia, grow on the conjunctiva, which covers the white part of your eyes. The more you expose your eyes to the sun, the more likely you are to get one of these bumps. Wind and dust are also believed to cause their formation.
While a pinguecula may contain deposits of protein, fat or calcium, the American Academy of Ophthalmology explains, a pterygium (also known as surfer’s eye) is a growth of fleshy tissue that may start as a pinguecula.
“If [a pterygium] grows close enough to the centre of the cornea, it will very much drop your vision,” says Peter J. McDonnell, M.D., director of the Wilmer Eye Institute and a professor of ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
4. Your eyes, too, can get sunburnt.
This condition is called photokeratitis. “It’s actually very common […] to see people who went skiing without any sort of eye protection literally burning their corneas,” Gibbons says. That specific condition is referred to as snow blindness, but your eyes can also get sunburnt at the beach from the sun’s reflection on the sand and water. “Fortunately, it’s temporary, and it usually doesn’t leave any lasting damage. But it can be extremely painful.”
5. Sun exposure over time can increase your risk of developing cataracts.
Everyone would get cataracts — a condition in which the eye’s lens becomes cloudy — if they lived long enough, McDonnell explains. But spending too much time in the sun could lead to an earlier onset of the disease. The World Health Organization estimates that up to 10 percent of cataracts may be caused by overexposure to UV light and could be avoided.
6. You can get melanoma in your eyes.
Skin isn’t the only area of your body where you can get a dangerous cancer called melanoma. The choroid — the layer located between the white of the eye and the retina — contains a lot of melanocytes, the cells that produce and contain melanin. “They can start multiplying and cause very aggressive cancers that can make you lose [not only] your eye, your vision, but even your life.” Ocular melanoma can also appear in the iris or ciliary body — sometimes even on the conjunctiva.
People with light skin and eyes, as well as those over 50, are at higher risk, but the condition remains very rare. Specialists still don’t know exactly what causes eye melanoma, but sun exposure may contribute to the development of the disease.
7. Sunglasses are not bad for your health.
Gibbons says the myth that sunglasses can be harmful might have originated at a time when sunglasses didn’t offer 100 percent UVA and UVB protection. “Patients would wear the sunglasses, and their pupils would become a little bigger because there was less light coming in,” he says. “So, if your pupils are a little bit bigger, but you’re not blocking the UV light, you will get more harmful light into your eye.” But this won’t be an issue with most sunglasses today, because nearly all sunglasses offer UVA and UVB protection.
A Guide to Sunglasses
- Opt for sunglasses that provide 100 percent UVA and UVB
protection (also referred to as UV 400). “Any sunglasses sold in the U.S. should meet that norm,” Gibbons says. But when in doubt, you can take your sunglasses to an optician, who can use a photometer to inspect your lenses. - Wear sunglasses (almost) every time you’re out. A cloudy day doesn’t mean a UV-free day. “You can get a sunburn on a cloudy day, and you can get UV light in your eyes,” McDonnell says. This is especially true for people who spend a lot of time outside, like hikers, sailors, skiers or golfers.
- Don’t forget your hat (and sunscreen). A hat with a brim will help protect areas not covered by the sunglasses. “One of my professors years ago showed that if you have sunglasses on that are 100 percent UV absorbing, you’ll only block 60 percent of the UV, because a lot will come from above and underneath, reflect off your nose and get into your eye,” McDonnell says. “When I watch my ophthalmologist friends, almost all of the time, they’re wearing their sunglasses and a hat with a brim.”
- Contact lenses are not enough. Some contacts will offer UV protection, but they will leave many parts of the eye defenceless against the sun’s harmful rays. “Anything in front of the cornea, the surface of the eye, the eyelids, etc …will not be protected by the contact lens,” Gibbons says.
Written by Elise Ceyral
Elise is an associate editor of AARP The Magazine and the AARP Bulletin.
