14 DAY TRIAL // Scientists at the NYU Langone Medical Center think to have figured out why it is that, regardless of how cautious they are when handling them, people who wear contact lenses are more likely to get an eye infection than folks who opt for regular glasses.
In a study, the researchers explain that, to solve this little medical mystery, they analyzed the bacteria population thriving on the eye surface of several volunteers who all wore contact lenses.
The team found that daily contact lenses wearers had bacteria that are commonly found on eyelid skin growing on their eye surface instead. Some of these bacteria can also be found on the eye surface of people who don't wear contact lenses, but in safer numbers.
“Our research clearly shows that putting a foreign object, such as a contact lens, on the eye is not a neutral act,” said senior study investigator and NYU Langone Medical Center specialist Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello, as cited by Science Daily.
The scientists believe that this change in the bacteria population found on the surface of a contact lenses wearer's eyes explains why they are at a greater risk of developing an eye infection.
However, they cannot say for sure whether the extra bacteria come from the wearer's fingers touching the eye when trying to place and remove the contact lenses, or if maybe the lenses themselves alter immune responses in the eye and invite the bacteria in.