Protect your eyes with sunglasses

Posted by: Caster Eye Center in eye health

Sunglasses certainly are fashionable and make your vision feel more comfortable when out in the bright sun. Hopefully, you know how important sunglasses are in protecting your eyes from the harmful UV rays of the sun. Yes, the same UV rays that cause aging of the skin and skin cancer cause significant damage to the eyes over the years, resulting in cataracts and macular degeneration. So how dark do my sunglasses have to be to really protect my eyes from these harmful light rays?
 

Surprisingly, sunglasses do not need to be dark at all. In fact, perfectly clear sunglasses can protect your eyes very well from the harmful UV rays.
 

UV rays are invisible to humans. Many other animals, such as insects, have excellent UV vision, but to human beings these harmful rays are invisible. The filters that remove these UV rays can be perfectly clear. Typically, we combine the UV removal with some removal of visible light. The more visible light that is removed, the darker the sunglasses will be, but this has nothing to do with how much UV light is being removed.
 

All sunglasses sold legally in the USA have over 95% UV light removal, regardless of how dark the lenses are. Beware of illegally imported sunglasses which may not have the proper amount of UV light removal.
 

With sunscreen lotion for the skin, it doesn’t matter how strong the lotion is if you do not use it regularly. The key is to put on sunglasses if you are going to be out in the sun for over a few minutes. The greatest UV exposure occurs during the middle of the day, and if there is snow or water to reflect the light, but significant amounts occur even on cloudy days and later in the day.
 

You are only given one set of eyes, so protect them with sunglasses!