Cataract surgery linked to reduced risk of dementia

Cataract surgery is associated with a reduced risk of dementia later in life, researchers in Taiwan have found. They reported their results in the European Journal of Neurology.

Using the Taiwan National Health Insurance Research Database, the investigators studied more than 200,000 people aged 70 or more years, half of whom had undergone surgery to remove their cataracts and the other half of whom had not. The researchers then looked at those in whom dementia was diagnosed more than a year after the surgery.

The investigators found that the incidence rate of dementia was 22.40 per 1,000 person-years in those who had undergone cataract surgery and 28.87 per 1,000 person-years in those with cataracts who had not undergone surgery. Women and those who underwent surgery closest to the discovery of a cataract had lower incidence of dementia.

To read the abstract of the study, visit the journal's website here.