May 3, 2019 - Cataracts
Hey folks, it’s Dr. Sam. I received a question today: what’s the relationship between diabetes and cataracts?
There was a review article published in 2010 in the Journal of Ophthalmology. Authors took a look at many different studies in relating diabetes causing cataracts, so I’d like to summarize that article into three main points:
- The authors took a look at The Beaver Dam study, The Wisconsin study, and The Blue Mountain eye study. They concluded that there is a relationship between diabetes and cataract formation.
- Diabetics who get cataract surgery tend to have poor vision after the surgery. This is related to three points: inflammation in the eye, diabetic retinopathy in the retina, or cystoid macular edema.
- The third part of the article reflected that antioxidants are beneficial and may slow down the formation of cataracts This is why I talk a lot about improving lifestyle and diet as ways to slow down and even reverse the progression of cataracts.
If you have diabetes, I would recommend working with a functional medicine doctor to see if you can improve not only your systemic and metabolic health, but this could also translate into improving your eye health.