Researchers have suggested that wearing eyeglasses may prevent the risk of contracting coronavirus.
According to the study, published in the journal medRxiv, people who wear glasses are less likely to contract coronavirus because they rub their eyes less.
For the study, the Indian researchers examined 304 people, aged between 10 and 80 years. 19 per cent of people who participated in the study wore spectacles most of the time.
The findings of the study indicated that those who wear spectacles for eight hours a day are less likely to catch coronavirus.
“The study showed that the risk of Covid-19 was about two to three times less in spectacles wearing population than the population not wearing those,” the study noted.
“An individual has the habit of touching his face on average 23 times in an hour and his eyes on average three times per hour. Long-term use of spectacles may prevent repeated touching and rubbing of the eyes,” the researchers explained.
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This is in tandem with the study conducted by the researchers in China last year. The study was published in the journal JAMA Network.
The study had found that Covid-19 patients who wear eyeglasses were five times less likely to contract coronavirus than the general population.
The authors wrote: “Our main finding was that patients with Covid-19 who wear eyeglasses for an extended period every day were relatively uncommon, which could be preliminary evidence that daily wearers of eyeglasses are less susceptible to Covid-19.”
“The eyes are considered an important channel for SARS-CoV-2 to enter the human body. For daily wearers of eyeglasses, who usually wear eyeglasses on social occasions, wearing eyeglasses may become a protective factor, reducing the risk of virus transfer to the eyes and leading to long-term daily wearers of eyeglasses being rarely infected with Covid- 19,” they added.
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