The Association Between Dry Eye and Sleep Disorders: The Evidence and Possible Mechanisms

Ao Li, Xiaozhao Zhang, Yihan Guo, Jingyi Wang, Yiran Hao, Yixuan Gu, Ying Jie Beijing Institute of Ophthalmology, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Ying Jie, Tel +86-13693572296, Fax +861058265900, Email jie_yingcn@aliyun.comAbstract: Dry eye is a disease that severely affects patients’ quality of life, increasing the global burden on public health and finance. There is growing evidence that a poor lifestyle is a significant risk factor for dry eye. Along with the development of society, sleep, as a way of life, is also constantly changing. The main manifestations of sleep disorders are reduced sleep time, circadian rhythm disturbances, and sleep breathing disturbances. Sleep disorders and their secondary systemic diseases have attracted wide attention in recent years. This review mainly explored the correlation between sleep disorders and dry eye, and found that sleep-related problems and other factors potentially leading from sleep disorders could be critical factors for dry eye. These results suggest that ophthalmologists should pay attention to the sleep health problems in patients with dry eye, and we hope that this paper can provide help for future research in this field.Keywords: circadian rhythm, sleep, sleep disorders, dry eye