New study reveals cataract surgery may reduce dementia risk in older patients
Surgery to remove cataracts, which cause the eye'due south normally clear lens to become cloudy, can restore vision almost instantaneously. New research suggests cataract surgery may accept some other benefit equally well: A reduced risk for Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia.
For the study, scientists looked at 3,038 men and women with cataracts who were 65 or older and free of dementia at the time of their diagnosis. Of these, one,382 had cataract surgery, and the rest did not. All of the subjects were role of a decades-long retentiveness study that followed them over decades.
The researchers found that the overall hazard for dementia was 29 per cent lower in those who had cataract surgery compared with those who did not.
The researchers also looked at glaucoma surgery, some other type of eye performance that does non restore vision but can assist forbid vision loss. It had no effect on dementia risk.
The study, in JAMA Internal Medicine, adjusted for age at first diagnosis of cataracts too as various risk factors for dementia, including few years of didactics, smoking, a high body mass index and hypertension.
The only trait that had a bigger affect on dementia risk than cataract surgery was not carrying a gene chosen APOE-e4 that is linked to increased take a chance of Alzheimer'due south disease.
"The authors were incredibly thoughtful in how they approached the data and considered other variables," said Dr Nathaniel Chin, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin, who was not involved in the study.
"They compared cataract surgery to non-vision-improving surgery – glaucoma surgery – and controlled for many important misreckoning variables." Dr Mentum is the medical director of the Wisconsin Alzheimer's Disease Inquiry Center.
"We were astounded past the magnitude of the effect," said the lead author, Dr Cecilia Lee, an associate professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington.
The authors notation that this is an observational study that does not prove cause and effect. Just they suggest that this may be the best kind of evidence attainable, since a randomised trial in which only some people are allowed to go cataract surgery would exist both practically and ethically impossible.
"People might say that those who are healthy enough to take surgery are healthier in general and therefore, less likely to develop dementia in any instance," Dr Lee said.
"But when we run into no clan in glaucoma surgery, that supports the thought that it isn't just eye surgery or existence good for you enough to undergo surgery, just rather, that the effect is specific to cataract surgery."
The findings eternalize before research showing that vision loss – as well as hearing loss – are important risk factors for cognitive decline. People who have trouble seeing or hearing, for case, may withdraw from activities similar exercise, social interactions, reading or intellectual pursuits, all of which are tied to a lower risk of dementia.
But the researchers also suggested a possible physiological mechanism. The visual cortex undergoes changes with vision loss, they wrote in the newspaper, and impaired vision may lessen input to the brain, leading to brain shrinkage, also a risk factor for dementia. At least one previous written report found an increase in the brain'southward grey affair volume subsequently cataract surgery.
While the exact mechanism for the benefits of cataract surgery remains unknown, Dr Lee said it's non surprising that some of the changes we see in the middle might reflect processes in the brain.
"The centre is very strongly continued to the encephalon," he said. "The eye develops in utero from the brain and shares the same neural tissue. The eye in development comes out of the forebrain."
Dr Mentum said that the almost important question for him going forward is what this means for doctors and patients. Doctors in primary care clinics or those who treat retention demand to screen more for visual decline, he said, adding that, "We tin can talk to people near potential encephalon health improvements with cataract surgery likewise every bit the need to address vision throughout one'due south life as a means of protecting knowledge."
By Nicholas Bakalar © 2022 The New York Times
This commodity originally appeared in The New York Times.
Source: https://cnalifestyle.channelnewsasia.com/wellness/cataracts-dementia-alzheimers-disease-300176
0 Response to "New study reveals cataract surgery may reduce dementia risk in older patients"
Post a Comment