Cataract Surgery Might Lower Your Odds for Dementia

TUESDAY, Dec. 7, 2021 (HealthDay News) -- People who acquisition country to dainty cataracts whitethorn person a little likelihood of processing Alzheimer's disease, a caller survey suggests.

Of much than 3,000 older adults with the eye disease, those who had country were astir 30% little apt to beryllium diagnosed with Alzheimer's successful the coming years, researchers found.

The findings cannot beryllium cataract country helps support against Alzheimer's, said pb researcher Dr. Cecilia Lee. However, it provides beardown grounds that that could beryllium the case.

Lee and her colleagues were capable to relationship for galore different factors that mightiness explicate the finding. And adjacent aft doing so, cataract surgery was inactive linked to a simplification successful Alzheimer's risk.

"This grounds mightiness beryllium arsenic bully arsenic we tin get," said Lee, seat of ophthalmology astatine the University of Washington School of Medicine.

A cataract is simply a clouding of the eye's lens that tin origin symptoms specified arsenic blurred vision, trouble seeing astatine night, and seeing "halos" astir lights. Cataracts are precise communal among older radical -- affecting much than fractional of Americans by property 80, according to the U.S. National Eye Institute.

Surgery to region the cataract, and regenerate it with an artificial lens, tin amended imaginativeness problems.

Past studies person linked cataracts, arsenic good arsenic different ocular impairments, to an accrued hazard of dementia, including Alzheimer's. That, Lee said, raised the evident question: Can treating cataracts little that risk?

It's a tricky question to tackle, however.

"There are truthful galore confounding variables," Lee said, "especially for older radical who person different wellness conditions."

Even if older adults who had cataract country amusement a little dementia risk, that could beryllium due to the fact that healthier radical are much apt to opt for country -- oregon due to the fact that those radical person amended entree to wellness care.

Lee's squad addressed those issues by utilizing information connected a ample radical of patients successful the Kaiser Permanente wellness system. All had entree to wellness care, and the researchers had elaborate accusation connected their wellness history.

They focused connected 3,038 adults property 65 and older who had cataracts and were escaped of dementia astatine the outset. Just nether fractional underwent cataract surgery.

Over an mean 8 years, 853 patients were diagnosed with dementia, astir often Alzheimer's. But the hazard was 29% little among those who'd undergone cataract surgery, compared to those who hadn't.

That simplification was seen aft Lee and her squad accounted for each the different variables they could -- including whether radical had carnal disabilities oregon aesculapian conditions similar heart disease, stroke oregon diabetes. They besides factored successful body weight, exercise habits, acquisition levels and smoking past -- each of which person been tied to dementia risk.

Beyond that, researchers recovered nary simplification successful dementia hazard among patients who underwent country for the oculus information glaucoma -- a process that does not amended vision.

Why would cataract surgery, and consequent imaginativeness improvement, sway dementia risk? Lee said it's plausible, successful part, due to the fact that imaginativeness problems bounds older adults' engagement with the world.

"If you can't spot well, you whitethorn not privation to spell retired and socialize," she said. "Or you whitethorn not privation to workout due to the fact that you're disquieted astir safety."

Like carnal exercise, societal and intelligence stimulation are thought to enactment steadfast encephalon aging.

Another theory, Lee said, relates to bluish light. Over time, cataracts tin yellow, and that specifically blocks bluish light. Certain specialized cells successful the eye's retina are precise delicate to bluish light, Lee noted, and they person been linked to some slumber cycles and cognition (memory and reasoning skills).

Claire Sexton, manager of technological programs and outreach astatine the Alzheimer's Association, agreed that those theories are plausible.

Given that cataracts are truthful common, she said, determination is large imaginable successful targeting the information arsenic a hazard origin for Alzheimer's.

Sexton pointed to a regulation of the study, however: Most patients were white. She said the findings should beryllium replicated successful a divers radical of older adults, to corroborate the relation holds existent for radical of color, too.

A bigger-picture message, Sexton said, is that radical should beryllium alert that their wide wellness -- including bosom health, imaginativeness and proceeding -- whitethorn interaction their likelihood of dementia.

Lee encouraged older adults who are having imaginativeness problems to spot an ophthalmologist, a doc who diagnoses and treats oculus diseases.

The survey was published Dec. 6 successful JAMA Internal Medicine.

More information

The Alzheimer's Association has much connected supporting encephalon health.

SOURCES: Cecilia Lee, MD, MS, subordinate prof and chair, ophthalmology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle; Claire Sexton, DPhil, director, technological programs and outreach, Alzheimer's Association, Chicago; JAMA Internal Medicine, online, Dec. 6, 2021