Are You Preventing Cataracts in Your Salon?
I was standing in a tanning salon lobby recently, when the salon professional asked a tanner, “May I see your eye protection?” The tanner said she didn’t wear goggles. The salon pro replied, “You can get cataracts from unprotected tanning sessions.” The tanner kind of shrugged and headed back to her tanning room with no eyewear – clearly, she felt cataracts happen to one’s grandma, not to someone like her.
I was surprised to learn that a ton of middle-aged folks get cataracts, not just the el- derly. Over 22 million people in the U.S. over 40 years old have cataracts. Tens of thousands will lose their sight and millions more will have poor vision because of cataracts, reports the University of Maryland Medical Center.
“Ultraviolet light can accelerate the aging process and we see cataracts in much younger people,” says Dr. Mark Kimpel, a retired ophthalmologist, formerly with Mayo Clinic and Indiana University Medical Center. “I constantly tell young people that you might not see the damage now, but it is like sunburn; you are accumulating the damage for later.” Dr. Kimpel, a sunbed user, strongly recommends wearing FDA-com- pliant eye protection during indoor tanning sessions and UV-block sunglasses outdoors.
