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Monday, August 15, 2005

Pilots Prone To Cataracts

Over and above the hand-held laser threat to pilots, researchers at the University of Iceland in Reykjavik have concluded that pilots had triple the general public's risk of developing cataracts. Nuclear cataracts, the most common, begin in the center of the eye's lens and spread. "The association between the cosmic radiation exposure of pilots and the risk of nuclear cataracts, adjusted for age, smoking status, and sunbathing habits, indicates that cosmic radiation may be a causative factor in nuclear cataracts among commercial airline pilots," study author Dr. Vilhjalmur Rafnsson wrote in the Archives of Ophthalmology. "All our [air] routes here are in higher exposure zones, which are about double that of the equator, and that is important," he declared. (See http://archopht.ama-assn.org)

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