Cataracts result in vision loss for millions of Australians and result in cloudy vision, which also makes your normal daily activities slower. The closer your lens in your eye gets to being cloudy, the more difficult it is to do simple things like reading, driving, or even looking at the faces of people clearly. Even though cataract surgery remains the gold standard for cataract treatment, people wonder whether or not non-surgical cataract treatment will prevent or reverse cataract development.
Learning About Cataracts and How They Develop
Cataracts form when proteins in the healthy lens of the eye begin to clump together and produce cloudy spots that affect vision. They will typically do this in a few years, typically as a normal aspect of ageing. More than half of all Australians will have developed cataracts or had cataract surgery by the age of 80.
The condition manifests differently in every individual. Some acquire the mild symptoms gradually, while others alter vision at a very fast pace. Some of the more prevalent symptoms include blurring of vision, photophobia, night blindness, and colours looking washed out or yellow.
Non-Surgical Treatment Approach to Cataract
Nutritional Support and Dietary Changes
There are foods that can delay the formation of cataracts. Some antioxidants, like vitamins C and E, and beta-carotene, defend the lens of the eye from oxidative stress. These can be found in citrus fruits, green leafy vegetables, carrots, and nuts.
Omega-3 fatty acids in fish like salmon and sardines also help with overall eye health. In some studies, people with higher amounts of these nutrients have fewer cataract formations, although evidence is not yet strong enough for reversing the condition.
Eye Drops and Homemade Remedies
Further, eye drops have been marketed for cataract treatment. It has been stated that N-acetylcarnosine or glutathione will break down protein clumps that cause cataracts. There are few and controversial scientific studies on such products, so it’s important to be aware of this.
No TGA-approved Australian eye drop for cataract reversal is available. There is subjective improvement, but no clear and useful reversal of the cataracts is demonstrated by clinical trials with topical treatment.
Lifestyle Changes
Good-quality sunglasses, that can protect the eyes from ultraviolet sun rays, can slow down the growth of cataracts. Smoking also needs to be avoided as smoking speeds up the growth of cataracts as well as the progression of cataract growth.
Control of an underlying condition such as diabetes would prevent the acute formation of cataract. Hyperglycemia causes more frequent change of the lens protein, and thus stringent diabetic control is required for eye management.
What Are Vision Care Experts’ Suggestions?
Specialists at every eye clinic in Melbourne CBD and beyond generally believe that surgery is the effective and guaranteed method of treating cataracts successfully. Dietary and lifestyle modification are able to delay development but cannot reverse already formed cataracts or restore vision once natural clouding has happened.
All eye physicians recommend eye check-ups from time to time to find out if cataracts are forming. If it is at the initial stage, the change in vision is just remedied with new spectacle prescriptions or with brighter light. When cataracts have already begun to interfere with the quality of life, however, surgery is the ideal option.
Australian cataract surgery now is highly successful, and over 95% of patients go on to have improved vision. It involves the removal of the discoloured natural lens and the placement of an artificial intraocular lens.
Making Your Choice Based on Your Vision Health
While not requiring surgery is a tempting thought, it will have to be science fact and not hype. The non-surgical treatments can be beneficial to overall eye health and slow the formation of cataracts, but any cataract therapy that is available will not reverse them.
