How Can You Prevent Cataracts? | Important Cataract Prevention Tips

Eye cataracts are responsible for the cloudy or blurry vision that commonly affects older adults, especially those over 60 years. They normally form gradually and are hard to notice until they begin to block the light entering your eye. In the United States, cataracts are the main cause of loss of eyesight (blindness).

Causes of Eye Cataracts

Age and eye injury are the most common causes of eye cataracts as they bring about changes in the eye lens tissue. They cause the fibers and proteins around the lens to break down, making your eyesight cloudy or hazy. Other causes are:

• Cigarette smoking
• Alcohol consumption
• Poor diet
• UV light
• Diabetes

Tips to Prevent Eye Cataracts

Although there aren’t ways that guarantee a hundred percent prevention of eye cataracts, making some changes in your lifestyle may help lower the odds of developing them.

Our Glendale eye doctor suggests some cataract prevention tips for incorporating into your lifestyle:

1. Avoid Smoking

Cigarette smoking not only damages your heart and lungs but also damages your eyes. Research has linked smoking to the early development of cataracts, making it a risk factor. The toxins from the smoke destroy the good chemicals found in your eye tissue, like the antioxidants that help neutralize bad chemicals.

2. Eating a Healthy Diet

Some cataract risk factors, such as family history or age, can be impossible to change, but it is always possible to change your diet intake. Foods with high antioxidants like vitamin E and vitamin C help prevent and slow cataract development. Good vitamin C sources include tomatoes, citrus, broccoli, potatoes, strawberries, green and red peppers, and kiwifruit. In addition, you can get vitamin E from vegetable oils made from safflower, wheat germ, and sunflower.

3. Having Regular Eye Checkups

According to our cataract specialist in Glendale, regular eye checkups can help detect eye problems early. Cataracts are sometimes associated with age, as the aged are most affected. Thus, people aged 40 to 65 are encouraged to get their eyes checked every two years, while those over 65 should book a complete eye checkup appointment after a year or two.

4. Limiting Your Alcohol Consumption

Massive consumption of alcohol in excessive quantities or having more than two drinks in a day (more than 20g of alcohol) increases the odds of getting cataracts. However, these odds can be decreased if you quit drinking.

5. Wearing Sunglasses

The Ultra Violet rays released from the sun, even on cloudy days, are enough to damage your eyes or cause changes in the sight organ. UV light may also damage proteins found in the eye lens, which is why wearing shades help prevent cataracts. Wearing tinted sunglasses with the best fit for your face shape can block around 99% of UVB and UVA rays and screen out about 80% to 90% of the visible light protecting your eyes.

6. Maintaining Healthy Blood Sugar Levels

Keeping your blood sugar levels in check not only helps prevent diabetes but also lowers the chances of eye cataracts. Patients with diabetes are more likely to get eye cataracts than those who don’t. High blood sugar levels cause the eye lens to swell if they are not controlled. The swollen lens begins to convert the blood sugar to sorbitol, decreasing eyesight vision and forming a cataract if allowed to collect in the eye lens.

7. Avoid or Seek Alternatives to Corticosteroid Medications

The long-term use of prescribed drugs like prednisone or high-dose oral steroids prescribed for arthritis, severe allergies, and blood disorders, among other health conditions, has been shown to increase the chances of developing cataracts. If you are on these medications, there is no need to panic since your doctor weighed the risks and benefits of the drugs for your condition.

The Takeaway

A healthy lifestyle that involves good dieting, exercise, and frequent eye checkups will play a major role in preventing eye cataracts. To best prevent cataracts, avoid unhealthy habits like cigarette smoking and excessive alcohol consumption, which increase the risk of cataracts.

Visit an Eye Doctor Near You

Visit a cataract specialist near you for a diagnosis if your vision gets blurry. Glendale Eye Medical Group offers eye checkups and cataract surgery in Glendale, CA. Contact our cataract expert in Glendale, CA and get your sight restored!