Can physical exercise influence the ocular surface homeostasis?

Abstract

Over the last two decades, physical exercise has experienced a great increase in its practice in developed populations, thanks to which the quality of life of people has improved and the risk of suffering from certain diseases has been reduced. The scientific literature has described what happens in some organs of the human organism concerning exercise, however, one of the little‐known organs in relation to physical exercise is the human eye.Recently, understanding what happens in the human eye with physical activity has gained interest among scientists. Specifically, in the last 5 years, studies have begun to be carried out on physical activity in relation to the changes it can cause on the ocular surface. The scientific literature currently available is diverse in terms of the population evaluated, the study design, and the analysis methodology. Published studies have described some effects on the ocular surface after acute exercise and others with chronic exercise. Some of them have followed an experimental design such as clinical trials or tear analysis and others an observational design utilizing subjective questionnaires on dry eye symptoms, obtaining promising results. A summarized vision of the most representative works on the field will be presented and discussed.