Dry eyes - more women than men?

[Seamus]

Hi there,

Has there been any research done on the ratio of women to men suffering from dry eyes? I seem to remember a doctor telling me dry eyes were more common in women than men. Ruling out LASIK as a cause, are there any causes of dry eye which are uniquely found among men rather than women?

I suppose as a man I am just trying to narrow the search for a "cause" of this condition. I do not want to be exclusive, but at the risk of introducing a gender division here, are there many men out there in "dry eye forum land" and have they any leads on what caused their condition?

Women please feel free to contribute also!

Best wishes,

- Seamus

[liz56]

Yes, there are a lot of studies that show that women are more prone to dry eye and that male hormones (I don't know for sure which ones, but I think that I read somewhere that androgen is the one to watch) might benefit dry eyes.

If you go to the following webpage, and select "The VIEW™ EyeRounds: State-of-the-Art Management of Chronic Dry Eye An Interactive Case-Based Virtual Grand Rounds Activity," you will see three case studies and some information on gender, age, and dry eye. Also, there is an extensive bibliography at the end that might direct you to more information.

http://medcme.org/eye.asp

[Seamus]

Thanks for that Liz.

[Eli]

Wow,
Awesome find Liz! Very informative.

[TRiBaL]

I'm a man and i get real bad dry eyes and I'm only 21 so I think its matter of bad luck. only thing women got over the men toward getting dry eyes I think is there hormones might change the oil and tear production in their eyes.

[liz56]

Androgen

Cool, I'm glad that you two found the resource to be of use!

I found a more recent article on the male hormone androgen and dry eye.

Ngoei, Enette. "Dry Eye: The layers of dry eye." EyeWorld Magazine. September 2007.

"Pain, sensitivity to light, itching and redness—dry eye happens to the best of us and research has shown that androgen deficiency is partially to blame for it.

"A new case report may add a further piece to this puzzle. Published in the June issue of Graefe’s Archive for Clinical and Experimental Ophthalmology, the report suggested that decreased mucin levels contribute to the tear film instability in patients with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS). They also suggest that this should be considered an additional cause of dry eye in sex steroid hormone pathology."

For more, visit the following link.

http://www.eyeworld.org/article.php?sid=3999

Best wishes in your search for the source of the problem,
Liz