Five Facts about UV Protection and your Eyes

You remember to wear UV clothing, stay in the shade and wear sunscreen to protect your skin from damaging UV rays. You even grab sunglasses and a hat to shade your eyes. But do you know why protecting your eyes is as important as your skin against UV rays? Acuvue wants to remind you exactly why UV rays can be harmful to your eyes if you head outside unprotected without the proper sunglasses or contacts.

IRREVERSIBLE: Short-term damage to the eyes may be hard to notice, but over the long-term, the sun can cause irreversible harm to all structures of the eye and surrounding tissue that are left unprotected or under-protected. These conditions may not manifest for years at which point the damage is already done and it is too late to reverse the effects of the sun. That’s why it is important to start protecting eyes from childhood.

CHILDREN, TEENS AT GREATER RISK OF EXPOSURE THAN ADULTS: Younger eyes are more susceptible to exposure to the sun’s harmful rays than adults. Children have larger pupils (allowing more light into their eyes), clearer lenses, and are outside without eye protection much more frequently and for longer periods than most adults. It is estimated that a significant amount of lifetime exposure to UV rays may occur by age 18 and that children’s annual dose of UV radiation is three times that of adults.

SUNGLASSES ALONE SOMETIMES ARE NOT ENOUGH: While most sunglasses can help block UV rays from entering through the lenses, most frame styles do not prevent rays from reaching the eyes from the sides, top, and bottom of the glasses. Hats with brims offer no protection from UV rays reflected up from ground surfaces such as pavement, sand, and water.

GREATER EXPOSURE TIMES IN EARLY AM, LATE AFTERNOON: While it has long been thought that the risk of UV exposure to the eyes is greatest during the mid-day hours, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM, research suggests that from Spring through Fall, when the days get longer, the incidence of exposure is actually greatest earlier and later in the day.

UV BLOCKING CONTACT LENSES: UV blocking contact lenses can provide an important level of additional protection from UV exposure. Not all contact lenses offer UV protection, and, of those that do, not all provide similar absorption levels. ACUVUE® is the only major brand of contact lenses which blocks approximately 97%of UV-B and 82% of UV-A rays as standard across the entire range of its products. On average, contact lenses without UV blocking capability allow 90% of UV-A radiation and 70% of UV-B radiation to pass through the lenses to your eyes. Although UV-blocking contact lenses are beneficial in helping to protect against harmful UV rays, clinical studies have not been done to show that they directly reduce the risk of any specific eye disease or condition.

Visit Acuvue.com to learn more on which contact lenses are right for you! You can even try a pair for free!