Is there an effective cataract treatment without surgery?

No.

"Cataract" is not a disease, nor is it some sort of film or haze covering the natural lens of the human eye. It is the eye's lens material itself hardening, becoming discolored, and eventually clouding up as an inevitable development of aging. This hardening of the lens actually starts in our teen years, as surprising as that may be. It continues steadily and undermines our ability to change focus to up close around our mid-40s. . As the human lens further discolors (very slowly but relentlessly), it eventually begins to interfere with even distance vision. [This is true for everybody.]

While periodically there appear advertisements for eye drops or natural "medicines" that get promoted to "reverse the symptoms of cataract," none of them work any better at this than regular lubricating eye drops.

As much as we would all like for some sort of vaccine, diet, or special exercises to solve medical problems, we still grow old! But once it gets bad enough, only surgery (the removal of the aging lens and its replacement with an artificial intraocular lens) will work.

_Written by J. Trevor Woodhams, M.D. - Chief of Surgery, Woodhams Eye Clinic