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Age-related cataract is the leading cause of blindness worldwide and the most costly item of the Medicare budget in the U.S. The prevalence and risk of cataracts increases significantly with age, from 5-10% of people under the age of 65 to 30-40% of people 75-85 years old. Women may have a slightly higher risk of cataracts than men. Other risk factors for cataracts include smoking, exposure to sunlight, diabetes, inflammation, and poor nutrition.
Cataracts develop when lens proteins are damaged, which causes them to become cloudy or opaque. Oxidative stress, principally from ultraviolet light is thought to play a crucial role in the development of age-related cataracts. The two most common types of age-related cataracts are called "nuclear" and "cortical" cataracts, according to their location.
In current practice, cataracts are allowed to develop until a patient's vision is severely impaired, at which time the cloudy lens is removed and an artificial lens is implanted. Cataract extractions are the most common surgical procedure performed in the U.S., at considerable expense for the public health care system (some estimates are up to 10 percent of the Medicare budget!) The National Eye Institute (NEI) estimates that there are greater than 1.7 million surgeries for cataract each year in the U.S. Epidemiologists have calculated that if the progression of cataracts could be delayed by ten years, the number of cataract extraction surgeries per year would be reduced by 45 percent. |