According to a new research presented at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in New Orleans, contact lens wearers have triple the amount of certain bacteria species on the surface on their eyes compared to people who wear glasses or don’t wear contacts at all.

That conclusion was made by researchers at New York University's Langone Medical Center. They found that putting thin polymers on eyeballs radically alters the type of microorganisms that live there.

The researchers compared the composition of the types of bacteria on the surface of people’s eyes. They found that bacteria on the individuals’ eyelids were found more on among contact wearers as compared to the non-wearers.

They used swabs of various parts of the eye and genetic sequencing and compared the quantity and types of bacteria on the surface of eyes of contact lens wearers and non wearers.

Senior study investigator Maria Gloria Dominguez-Bello said their research clearly showed that putting a foreign object is not a neutral act.

Contact lens wearers were found to have 5,245 distinct bacterial strains and subtypes. They had three times the usual proportion of four of them. These include methylobacterium, actobacillus, acinetobacter and pseudomonas.

Methylobacterium is often found in soil, sewage, and leaf surfaces and actobacillus lives in the digestive and urinary tract and does not cause disease.

Acinetobacter were found in soil and water and responsible for the great majority of infections while and pseudomonas found in the environment and that can lead to everything from ear infections to more serious issues.

Scientists believe this may help explain the long-standing problem of why contact lens wearers are more prone to eye infection. The Centers for Disease Control has estimated that Americans make almost 1 million doctor's appointments or ER visits for eye infections.