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INTRODUCTION AND OUTLINE 4

Introduction and Outline

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Purpose: To determine the risk factors to the senile cataract disease

Audience: Patients with senile cataract, physicians, professor, and the class

Argument: individuals are exposed to senile cataract as a result of the aging, nutritional inadequacy, metabolic and inherited defects, ultraviolet radiation, and smoking

I. Introduction

Senile cataract is an age-related, vision-impairing disease that leads to gradual progress in the clouding as well as thickening of the eye lens. Senile cataract is considered to be the world's leading cause of treatable blindness. An individual with this condition is presenting with a history of the gradual and progressive visual deterioration and the disturbance in the night and the near vision. The pathophysiology behind this condition appears to be complex and yet to be fully understood. The cause of the senile cataract is a multifactorial process that involves complicated interactions between different physiologic processes modulated by the environmental, genetic, nutritional, and systematic factors. The senile cataract is caused by aging, nutritional inadequacy, metabolic and inherited defects, ultraviolet radiation, and smoking (Gupta et al., 2014).

II. Ultraviolet radiation

The lifetime ultraviolet-B exposure leads to a 60 percent increase in the risk of cataract. The higher exposure to the UV-B leads to the changes in the corneal. The electromagnetic radiation with longer wavelengths for example the UVR-A is contributing to the negative biological impacts with little damages in the DNA. The prolonged-exposure to the infrared rays is leading to the discoid posterior subcapsular opacities and the true exfoliation of the anterior capsule (Gupta et al., 2014).

III. Smoking

The increase in the smoking dose leads to an increase in the severity of nuclear opacities. The aromatic compounds that are found in the inhaled smoke are causing an oxidative modification of the lenticular components. Smoking is contributing to cataracts by causing an alteration of the less thorough process of oxidation. Smoking causes the accumulation of heavy metals such as cadmium in the lens (Beltran-Zambrano et al., 2019).

IV. Nutritional Inadequacy

The animal research in vitro investigations has indicated that nutritional deficiencies of the macronutrients lead to cataract. The aldose reductase required to help in the reduction of sugar is causing the formation of cataracts that is linked to the abnormalities in the metabolism of sugar. The poor nutritional status of the patients with cataracts is leading to the acceleration of the protein insolubilization in the lens (Beltran-Zambrano et al., 2019).

V. Genetic factors

The senile cataract is also caused by the anomaly in the patterns of the chromosomes of the person. About one-third of the congenital cataracts are caused by hereditary factors. The PITX3 gene is considered to be contributing to the inherited cataracts in the anterior segment mesenchymal dysgenesis (Gupta et al., 2014).

VI. Maternal and fetal factors

The malnutrition especially during pregnancies or in the early infancy is linked to the non-familial zonular cataract. The maternal infections such as rubella and the cytomegalo inclusion increase the exposure of the individuals to cataract (Gupta et al., 2014).

VII. Aging

The age-related senile cataract occurs among individuals of ages more than 50 years. The age-related senile cataract occurs as a result of exposure to mechanical, chemical, and radiation trauma. This condition is becoming progressively severe and common among elderly individuals. As individual ages, there is a breakdown of the protein, damages to the fiber cell membranes, inadequate glutathione, oxidative damages, increased levels of calcium in the body, and the abnormal lens epithelial cell movement and these expose an individual to senile cataract (Garg, Mullick, Nigam, & Raj, 2020).

References

Beltran-Zambrano, E., Garcia-Lozada, D., & Ibanez-Pinilla, E. (2019). Risk of cataract in smokers: A meta-analysis of observational studies. Archivos de la Sociedad Española de Oftalmología (English Edition), 94(2), 60-74. Garg, P., Mullick, R., Nigam, B., & Raj, P. (2020). Risk factors associated with the development of senile cataract. Ophthalmology Journal, 5, 17-24. Gupta, V., Rajagopala, M., & Ravishakar, B. (2014). Etiopathogenesis of cataract: An appraisal. Indian Journal of Ophthalmology, 62(2), 103-110.