Don't be surprised if, on your next visit to your contact lens practitioner or optometrist, you are asked if you smoke.

If you do, this professional is likely to urge you to kick the habit - and may even tell you how to achieve this.

But what's smoking got to do with the eyes, you ask. Shouldn't the concern be the lungs, heart and other vital organs?

Although it is not widely known, smoking can increase the risk of the age-related macular degeneration (AMD), the most common cause of blindness among people aged 55 and older in developed counties. Worldwide, it ranks third as the most common cause of blindness, after cataract and glaucoma.

But people who are in the dark about this can be forgiven. Even some of these eye professionals don't know.

But a survey by the Health Promotion Board (HPB) and Alexandra Hospital (AH) shows that contact lens practitioners and optometrists who are aware of eye-related health impact of smoking are more than twice as likely to check the smoking status of their clients and to provide quit smoking advice.

The telephone survey was conducted between April and December last year and involved 289 contact lens practitioners and optometrists.

The poll revealed that the majority (97 per cent) of respondents perceived smoking as harmful to health in general, and 81 per cent were aware that smoking would lead to minor ailment such as dry eyes.

However, 66 per cent were aware that smoking is one of the key risk factors for AMD.

Among those who asked about their client?s smoking status, 62 per cent said they would give the quit smoking advice if they knew their clients smoked. Those who did not give such advice to smoking clients said this was because they lacked the skills to give such advice.

This will change as plans are afoot to equip these professionals with the skills to give advice to clients on how to quit smoking.

A joint HPB-AH statement says that the encouraging finding in the poll is that 60 per cent of respondents felt that optometrists should play a role in encouraging smokers to quit smoking and were prepared to impart advice.

In the wake of these findings, HPB and AH are collaborating to widen the scope of healthcare professionals who are involved in spreading the quit smoking message and provide help to those who wish to quit.

In particular, HPB and AH hope to increase the public?s awareness of smoking and AMD, and to motivate smokers to stop.

The developmental phase of the programme is underway and will involve educating all contact lens practitioners and optometrists on the link between smoking, AMD and other eye diseases linked to smoking.

These healthcare professionals will be equipped with skills by incorporating the training into the Continuing Optometric Education modules for contact lens practitioners and optometrists. Quit smoking skills training has been incorporated into the syllabus of optometry students in the Singapore Polytechnic.

The aim is to have all contact lens practitioners and optometrists provide brief advice to smokers they meet in their day-to-day work. Equipping them with quit smoking skills increases the outreach of personalised quit smoking advice.

?The survey findings are very encouraging. There is a significant percentage of contact lens practitioners and optometrists who recognise the dangers of smoking and are willing to provide quit smoking advice. This is very important as studies have shown that even brief quit smoking advice from healthcare professionals is effective in reducing smoking prevalence,? says Mr Lam Pin Woon, Chief Executive Officer, HPB.

Associate Professor Au Eong Kah Guan, Head and Senior Consultant of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences in Alexandra, adds: ?Studies have shown that although the awareness of the risk of blindness from smoking is low in the general population, more people fear blindness than lung cancer and heart disease. The fear of blindness may therefore be more likely to motivate smokers to quit or to discourage non-smokers from picking up the habit.

"Eye care professionals are in a unique position to raise the awareness about the link between smoking and blindness, and help reduce the prevalence of smoking, and smoking-related diseases and deaths."

Prof Au Eong is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Panel of the AMD Alliance International, a global non-profit coalition of 55 organisations in 21 countries working to raise awareness of AMD.

About 27 per cent of those 60 years and above in Singapore suffer from AMD. Yet, a recent telephone survey of 520 people from different households show that only 7.3 per cent of Singapore residents are aware of AMD which is a degenerative condition affecting the most sensitive central portion of the retina (macula) that is responsible for sharp straight-ahead vision and reading.

Smokers run a risk two to four times higher than non-smokers of getting AMD.

People who have moderate AMD can reduce their risk of progression to advanced AMD by 25 per cent over 5 years if they take daily supplements of vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene and zinc.