Cataract Surgery Might Lower Your Odds for Dementia

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, Dec. 7, 2021 (HealthDay News) — People who bear surgical procedure to deal with cataracts might have a decrease chance of growing Alzheimer’s illness, a brand new research suggests.

Of greater than 3,000 older adults with the attention illness, those that had surgical procedure had been about 30% much less more likely to be identified with Alzheimer’s within the coming years, researchers discovered.

The findings can not show cataract surgical procedure helps defend towards Alzheimer’s, mentioned lead researcher Dr. Cecilia Lee. However, it gives robust proof that that may very well be the case.

Lee and her colleagues had been capable of account for quite a few different elements that may clarify the discovering. And even after doing so, cataract surgical procedure was nonetheless linked to a discount in Alzheimer’s danger.

“This proof is likely to be pretty much as good as we will get,” mentioned Lee, chair of ophthalmology on the University of Washington School of Medicine.

A cataract is a clouding of the attention’s lens that may trigger signs comparable to blurred imaginative and prescient, issue seeing at night time, and seeing “halos” round lights. Cataracts are quite common amongst older folks — affecting greater than half of Americans by age 80, in line with the U.S. National Eye Institute.

Surgery to take away the cataract, and substitute it with a synthetic lens, can enhance imaginative and prescient issues.

Past research have linked cataracts, in addition to different visible impairments, to an elevated danger of dementia, together with Alzheimer’s. That, Lee mentioned, raised the plain query: Can treating cataracts decrease that danger?

It’s a tough query to sort out, nevertheless.

“There are so many confounding variables,” Lee mentioned, “particularly for older individuals who produce other well being situations.”

Even if older adults who had cataract surgical procedure present a decrease dementia danger, that may very well be as a result of more healthy persons are extra more likely to go for surgical procedure — or as a result of these folks have higher entry to well being care.

Lee’s group addressed these points by utilizing information on a big group of sufferers within the Kaiser Permanente well being system. All had entry to well being care, and the researchers had detailed info on their well being historical past.

They centered on 3,038 adults age 65 and older who had cataracts and had been freed from dementia on the outset. Just below half underwent cataract surgical procedure.

Over a median eight years, 853 sufferers had been identified with dementia, most frequently Alzheimer’s. But the chance was 29% decrease amongst those that’d undergone cataract surgical procedure, in comparison with those that hadn’t.

That discount was seen after Lee and her group accounted for all the opposite variables they may — together with whether or not folks had bodily disabilities or medical situations like coronary heart illness, stroke or diabetes. They additionally factored in physique weight, train habits, training ranges and smoking historical past — all of which have been tied to dementia danger.

Beyond that, researchers discovered no discount in dementia danger amongst sufferers who underwent surgical procedure for the attention situation glaucoma — a process that doesn’t enhance imaginative and prescient.

Why would cataract surgical procedure, and subsequent imaginative and prescient enchancment, sway dementia danger? Lee mentioned it is believable, partially, as a result of imaginative and prescient issues restrict older adults’ engagement with the world.

“If you may’t see properly, chances are you’ll not need to exit and socialize,” she mentioned. “Or chances are you’ll not need to train since you’re nervous about security.”

Like bodily train, social and psychological stimulation are thought to help wholesome mind ageing.

Another principle, Lee mentioned, pertains to blue gentle. Over time, cataracts can yellow, and that particularly blocks blue gentle. Certain specialised cells within the eye’s retina are very delicate to blue gentle, Lee famous, they usually have been linked to each sleep cycles and cognition (reminiscence and pondering abilities).

Claire Sexton, director of scientific applications and outreach on the Alzheimer’s Association, agreed that these theories are believable.

Given that cataracts are so frequent, she mentioned, there may be nice potential in concentrating on the situation as a danger issue for Alzheimer’s.

Sexton pointed to a limitation of the research, nevertheless: Most sufferers had been white. She mentioned the findings ought to be replicated in a various group of older adults, to substantiate the affiliation holds true for folks of coloration, too.

An even bigger-picture message, Sexton mentioned, is that folks ought to be conscious that their common well being — together with coronary heart well being, imaginative and prescient and listening to — might impression their odds of dementia.

Lee inspired older adults who’re having imaginative and prescient issues to see an ophthalmologist, a doctor who diagnoses and treats eye ailments.

The research was printed Dec. 6 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

More info

The Alzheimer’s Association has extra on supporting mind well being.

SOURCES: Cecilia Lee, MD, MS, affiliate professor and chair, ophthalmology, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle; Claire Sexton, DPhil, director, scientific applications and outreach, Alzheimer’s Association, Chicago; JAMA Internal Medicine, on-line, Dec. 6, 2021