The drops have so far been successfully tested on dogs

Jul 23, 2015 09:16 GMT  ·  By

The medical community describes cataract as a clouding of the lens in the eye. The condition can affect either just one or sometimes both of a person's eyes and causes a decrease in visual acuity. 

People who develop cataracts experience symptoms such as blurred vision, faded colors, trouble seeing at night, and halos appearing in their visual field.

For decades now, medical have turned to surgery to clear cataracts and help people see again. Still, it looks like a new, less invasive treatment option for this condition might soon become available.

It might be possible to treat cataracts with eye drops

In a new study in the journal Nature, a team of researchers argue that, having carries out a series of experiments on dogs, they found it might be possible to use eye drops to treat cataracts.

The drops the scientists have in mind contain a chemical compound dubbed lanosterol. This molecule is naturally occurring in the body. In healthy individuals, it prevents proteins from forming clumps in the eye lenses and thus causing cataracts.

Specialists Kang Zhang of the University of California, San Diego, and colleagues say that, having carried out a series of experiments, they discovered that people who develop cataracts have less of this molecule in their body than they should.

This gave the scientists the idea to develop eye drops containing lanosterol as a treatment option for cataracts. Once developed, the drops were tested on dogs and proved most effective.

As detailed in the journal Nature, it only took about 6 weeks for the drops to reduce lens cloudiness and also shrink the size of the cataracts in the dogs' eyes. Similar results were obtained when the drops were tested on rabbit lenses grown in the lab.

Many patients would choose eye drops over surgery

Let's face it, going under the knife is tricky business, be it to treat cataracts or to sort out some other health complication. For this reason, researcher Kang Zhang and his team think many cataract patients would choose eye drops over surgery if given a choice.

“Our study identifies lanosterol as a key molecule in the prevention of lens protein aggregation and points to a novel strategy for cataract prevention and treatment,” the scientists write in the report detailing their work.

Cataract is a clouding of the eye lens
Cataract is a clouding of the eye lens

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Eye drops promise to treat cataracts
Cataract is a clouding of the eye lens
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