Cigarettes are bad for humans in myriad ways; most people are aware of the dangers that can accompany smoking. Each year, researchers uncover new links between tobacco use and health conditions. While the majority of adults understand that smoking can result in cancer, new research suggests that those who smoke more than a pack of cigarettes a day could be playing with their vision.

A Rutgers University study found that heavy tobacco smoking can have harmful effects on "spatial and color vision" and may result in color blindness. The findings appear in the journal Psychiatry Research.

"Our results indicate excessive use of cigarettes, or chronic exposure to their compounds, affects visual discrimination, supporting the existence of overall deficits in visual processing with tobacco addiction," said Steven Silverstein from the Rutgers's Behavioral Health Care. "Cigarette smoke consists of numerous compounds that are harmful, and it has been linked to a reduction in the thickness of layers in the brain, and to brain lesions, involving areas such as the frontal lobe, which plays a role in voluntary movement and control of thinking, and a decrease in activity in the area of the brain that processes vision."

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“Smoking over 20 cigarettes a day can cause blindness”