Why You Should Not Wear Contact Lenses

You are not only a human being… you’re a microbial being that provides a home to nearly 100 trillion bacteria, fungi, viruses, and other microorganisms that compose your body's microflora. Advancing science has made it quite clear that these organisms play a major role in your health, both mental and physical. Much of the research to date has focused on the role of microbes in your gut and skin health, but this is only the beginning. Your eyes have a microbiome, too, one that has been largely neglected by researchers to the extent that its functions remain unknown.1 A 2015 study presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology has begun to piece together the puzzle, however, by examining the colonies of bacteria living on the eyes of people who wear contact lenses and those who do not. Their findings add to the growing knowledge that modern lifestyles are tinkering with our microbiomes… with potentially dangerous effects.