Why Tears Are Important

Segment 2

Why are tears important? Perhaps we should ask - why should we even worry about our tears?

Well, first we need to remember that the surface of our eyes is covered in a sheet of living cells and like every living part of our body these cells need support - things like water, food, oxygen and protection. Every living cell in our body can generally get this from blood, but if we had blood over our eyes we would have a hard time to see - so instead of blood we have tears - which means that tears need to be as complex as blood, but without the red cells that would get in the way of our vision.

Moisture is job number one and tears are so important that we have two ways to make tears - what I like to call a sprinkler system and a firehose. The firehose makes a saltwater tear that is good for flushing a loose eyelash out of our eye or helping us with our emotions - but being mostly salt and water it isn’t much like blood, so we should think of it more like an emergency back up system. The best tear comes from our sprinkler system made of many cells and glands that together make the best tears from water, salt, protein and oil - think salad dressing - and like salad dressing the water and oil don’t mix - with oil floating on the surface. Either system can wet our eyes, but only the salad dressing of the sprinkler system has all the good stuff to keep our eyes happy and healthy.