The eye is one of the most important sensory organs in humans. This makes it all the more frightening when vision becomes cloudy and the ability to see changes as a result. After all, those who no longer see clearly can no longer participate fully in life. Cataracts: is a disease of the eyes in which the normally clear lens of the eye becomes increasingly cloudy. In most cases, cataracts occur due to age, but they can also be the result of metabolic diseases or malformations or injuries involving the eyes.
The good news is that cataracts can be treated very well by surgery β provided they are detected in good time. However, if cataracts remain untreated, they can lead to blindness. If you get the feeling that you are seeing everything around you through a sort of grey veil, or your vision becomes clouded more and more often, these symptoms may be signs of cataracts. The lens of the eye turns greyish in the case of advanced disease and becomes cloudy. Suffers may also develop a fixed stare after this disease has caused them to become almost completely blind.
Most cataracts are age-related. However, they may also have other causes such as metabolic diseases, other eye diseases or eye injuries. Normally, the lens of an eye is clear and can be deformed as required by the muscles of the eyes. This deformability, together with the fluid surrounding the lens, enables us humans to see both at a distance and nearby with equal clarity.
The medical term is accommodation of the eye, i. The older you get, the less flexible your lens will be, which can cause it to become cloudy. However, there are a lot of people who suffer from cataracts without being aware of it as there is often no visual disturbance at the beginning of the illness.
If you are diabetic, the sugar content in the aqueous humour in your eyes and of course also in your blood is naturally higher. The excess sugar is deposited in the lens of the eye, which swells up as a result. This in turn causes the arrangement of the lens fibres to shift, making the lens cloudy. In addition, there are other metabolic disorders that can lead to cataracts. Specifically, these are calcium deficiency, hyperactivity of the parathyroid gland, excess ferritin known as iron-storage protein in the blood or galactosaemia, a congenital problem with utilising the sugar contained in breast milk galactose.
