Cataract In Women Research Articles

Lower nasal distribution of cortical cataract: the Blue Mountains Eye Study.

Previous reports have indicated that cortical cataract commences in the lower nasal lens, possibly due to sunlight exposure because of the shallow brow temporally. The present study aimed to assess the lens sector distribution of cortcal cataract in a population. The Blue Mountains Eye Study assessed 3654 residents aged 49-97 years; 3270 phakic subjects had retroillumination lens photographs graded using the Wisconsin method, which divides the lens into eight radial sectors with a grid overlay. Graders estimated percentage of cortical opacity in each sector. The lower nasal area consistently had the greatest opacity, a pattern present at each age and similar in both sexes, despite the 20% greater cortical cataract in women. The mean area of lens cortex involved by opacities in the lower nasal hemisphere was four fold greater than in the upper temporal hemisphere at each age. The lower nasal distributon was highly symmetrical when both eyes were affected. When > 20% of the lower nasal lens quadrant had cortical opacity, 88% of bilaterally affected subjects had cortical cataract n the same quadrant of the fellow eye. The lower nasal distribution may indicate a role for sunlight in the aetiology of cortcal cataract, which could be considered when examining other cortical cataract risk factors, such as diabetes, vascular disease and hormonal factors in women.

Cardiovascular Disease, Selected Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors, and Age-related Cataracts: The Beaver Dam Eye Study

To examine the associations of cardiovascular disease and selected cardiovascular disease risk factors with the prevalence of age-related cataract. We conducted a population-based prevalence study of adults aged 43 to 86 years (n = 4,926) in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. An ocular examination including lens photographs, medical history, height and weight measurement, blood testing, and photograph grading was performed according to standard protocols. Age and sex influenced most of the relationships between risk variables and cataract. Many relationships apparent in univariate analyses were not significant when controlling for confounders. In multivariate models, higher glycated hemoglobin was significantly and consistently associated with increased risk of nuclear cataract in women. For cortical cataract, higher serum high density lipoprotein cholesterol was associated with decreased risk in women. For posterior subcapsular cataract, men with higher ratios of total to high-density lipoprotein cholesterol were at increased risk. History of cardiovascular disease was not associated with cataracts in persons with or without diabetes after controlling for additional risk indicators. Some risk factors for cardiovascular disease were associated with increased frequency of age-related lens opacities. Age and sex influenced these relationships but did not entirely explain them. Longitudinal follow-up is necessary to determine antecedent-consequent relationships that may suggest causal associations.

Selected diseases and risk of cataract in women: A case-control study from Northern Italy

The relationship between cataract extraction in women and current body mass index, history of clinically relevant obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia was considered in a case-control study conducted in northern Italy. A total of 287 women who had cataract extraction and 1227 control subjects who were in the hospital for acute, nonneoplastic, nonophthalmologic, nonmetabolic, nongastroenterologic diseases were interviewed during their hospital stay. Odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were derived from multiple logistic regression equations, including terms for age, education, smoking status, current body mass index, and simultaneously the four diseases considered. Elevated current body mass index (OR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.2 to 3.8, for ≥30 versus <20 kg/m 2), diabetes (OR, 2.2; 95% CI, 1.4 to 3.4), hypertension (OR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.1 to 2.0), hyperlipidemia (OR, 1.8; 95% CI, 1.2 to 2.7), and clinical history of obesity (OR, 1.5; 95% CI, 1.0 to 2.2) were associated with an increased risk of cataract extraction. The OR in two separate strata of age (<60 and ≥60 years) indicated that the associations of diabetes and hyperlipidemia were stronger at a younger age: the OR for diabetes was 4.6 for those younger than 60 years and 1.7 for those age 60 or over, and for hyperlipidemia the ORs were 2.8 and 1.6, respectively. Thus, the results of this study support the association in women between cataract extraction and diabetes, current overweight, history of clinically relevant obesity, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia. These findings also suggest that these factors may have some biologically independent impact on the risk of cataract.

Cataract patients in a defined Swedish population 1986–1990

With the Cataract Analysis System (CAS) we have analyzed 5878 consecutive cataract patients operated from 1986 through 1990. The material is complete enough to be regarded as representative of the cataract surgery performed in the entire referral region of the Lund Health Care District during this period. There has been a striking increase in the number of operations, in 1990 reaching 3.6 per 1000 inhabitants in the referral region. Simultaneously, surgery has changed from being mainly an in-patient to an out-patient procedure. Females predominate in the material, also after adjustment for the female preponderance in the population. Most likely, this is due to a higher incidence of cataract in women than in men.

Climactery and cataracts

Based on his observations, the author claims that female senile cataracts are much more common than male cataracts. Moreover, in 80% of cases of early cataracts he could identify the early onset of menopause. This gave him grounds for recognizing the onset of the menopausal period with its inherent involution of the genital organs as a predisposing moment for the occurrence of cataracts in women.