As many Americans grow older and begin to look at retirement homes, they should also remember to reassess their health, particularly that of their eyes.
A new study that focused on older men reveals that men over the age of 50 are more likely to suffer from dry eye disease.
The report appears in the Archives of Ophthalmology and it measured clinically diagnosed dry eye, or severe symptoms of this affliction.
This condition would worsen as the individuals grew older in almost 4 percent of cases for men aged between 50 and 54 and nearly 8 percent of those over 80 years old.
Dry eye disease was seen to be aggravated by certain factors, such as high blood pressure or taking medications such as some antidepressants or conditions like benign prostatic hyperplasia.
According to Senior Living, the doctors who completed this study hope that it has much wider implications, perhaps encouraging older men to mention the symptoms to their healthcare providers.
“[W]e hope that these data from a large and well-characterized group of U.S. men will provide further motivation for clinicians and researchers to understand this disease and develop more effective and targeted interventions for patients,” the researchers stated.
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