Cataracts

Cholesterol-lowering statin drugs can reduce the incidence of the most common type of cataract by 45%, according to a five-year study of nearly 1,300 people. The findings surprised researchers because several potential cholesterol-lowering drugs never made it to market after studies showed they caused cloudiness and other eye problems. The current study, published today in the Journal of the American Medical Assn.

Lifetime exposure to lead from paint in older houses, drinking-water pipes and other sources appears to increase men's risk of cataract development. "This research suggests that reduction of lead exposure throughout a man's lifetime should help reduce his chances of developing cataracts and of requiring cataract surgery," said Debra Schaumberg of Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, lead author of the study.

Confirming a trend that has been observed for other types of surgery, a new study has found that Medicare patients in managed care plans are only half as likely to undergo vision-saving cataract surgery as are those in traditional fee-for-service plans. But the study was not designed to assess whether the managed care patients are being underserved or the fee-for-service patients are receiving unnecessary surgery, a team from UCLA, USC and Rand Corp.

Dr. Timothy B. Cavanaugh sat at a small table in the San Juan Capistrano office of Optex Ophthalmologics Inc., a detached pig eye staring up at him through the microscope. With deft movements he cut a small slit in the periphery of the eye, punched a hole in the lens and sucked out its jello-like contents using a newly developed probe--all in less than five minutes.

A diet rich in saturated fat and cholesterol may increase the risk of one common cause of blindness, macular degeneration, while healthy eating appears to lower the risk of another, cataracts, a researcher from the University of Wisconsin Medical School found. The unhealthy diet was found to increase by 80% the risk of macular degeneration, a condition that affects about 25% of Americans over age 65 and is the most common cause of blindness in the elderly.

A diet rich in saturated fat and cholesterol may increase the risk of one common cause of blindness, macular degeneration, while healthy eating appears to lower the risk of another, cataracts, a researcher from the University of Wisconsin Medical School found. The unhealthy diet was found to increase by 80% the risk of macular degeneration, a condition that affects about 25% of Americans over age 65 and is the most common cause of blindness in the elderly. In a separate study, the team found that people taking vitamin supplements had a 40% lower risk of cataracts and that those who ate more fiber in breads and cereals had less severe cataracts.

A retired engineer, blinded by cataracts, got a free operation that has restored the vision in one eye. Johan Kempkens, 65, lost sight in his right eye three years ago, but worried that surgery was too experimental to risk. Then in March, he also lost sight in his left eye. "I was stumbling around for a month," Kempkens said. "I could mostly help myself because I knew where everything was, but when I went outside the house it was bad."

It's 8:30 a.m. in Operating Room No. 1 and Dr. Alan Aker, peering through a microscope, delicately cuts a quarter-inch incision into the surface of Blanche Klein's right eye. He carves open the layer of cloudy material that has made Klein feel as if she's been squinting through a dirty milk bottle. Using an instrument that works like a tiny jackhammer, he pulverizes the cataract with hissing sound waves pulsing at 40,000 times a second as a hollow needle vacuums away the particles.

The U.S. Senate has proposed a 25% cut in Medicare reimbursement payments for artificial lenses used in cataract surgery, a move that could cost hundreds of jobs in California, a Washington industry group warned on Friday. The Health Industry Manufacturers Assn. said that almost all the medical device firms that make so-called intraocular lenses are in Southern California. Allergan Inc., based in Irvine, is the largest manufacturer of such lenses.

People who smoke cigarettes face up to twice the risk nonsmokers have of developing cataracts, according to two separate studies by researchers at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. The findings, which confirm earlier suggestions of a link, indicate that about 20% of the cataract cases in the United States may be attributed to smoking. One study of more than 50,000 female nurses found a 60% increased risk of cataracts in smokers compared to nonsmokers.