What is cataract?

Cataract is the clouding of clear lens of eye, leading to reduced vision. It is an age-related process.

What is a lens?

Lens is a clear crystalline structure in the eye. It helps in focusing images on retina. Any changes causing denaturation of lens proteins makes it opaque thus blocking visual pathway and leads to blurred vision.

What are the types of cataract?

Depending upon which layer of lens is involved, it is can be –

• Nuclear

when central nucleus is opacified

• Cortical 

when peripheral cortex involved

• Subcapsular

    when layer beneath capsule of lens is involved

What are the stages of cataract?

• Immature cataract

here the patient has blurred vision. It affects patients’ daily routine and is an indication for surgery.

• Mature cataract

 here because of total cataract, the patient has no vision and needs urgent cataract surgery.

What are the causes of cataract?

Congenital (since birth) 

• Genetic disorders like Down’s syndrome or galactosemia
• Infective causes like toxoplasma, cytomegalovirus, herpes

Acquired causes

• The most common cause is age. Other reasons can be diabetes, trauma, inflammatory prolonged sun exposure, UV rays and drugs like steroids.

Risk factors 

There are many reasons why a cataract can happen. Ageing, radiation, congenital issues, and many other factors contribute to susceptibility towards cataracts.

• Age

  This is one of the most common causes of cataracts. The eye lens suffers degeneration over a period. The lens deterioration can happen much before than usual because of lifestyle diseases like diabetes and hypertension. The body is unable to restore the loss of lens quality. Medication intervention is the only solution.

• Smoking

  Smoking and drinking contribute majorly towards increasing the odds of having a cataract. Smoking causes oxidation in the eye lens leading to changing the physiology of the lens. It also leads to metals collecting in the lens adding to the degeneration of the lens.