Eyesight is one of the gifts of nature that we cannot live without and we need to protect them against diseases that can cause blindness.

One such disease is cataract, it affects millions of people worldwide and is a major cause of loss of vision and blurred eyesight.

We need to recognise the signs of cataract that are listed below:

1. Finding it difficult to focus and view the screen or read a book because it appears blurred or unclear to your eyes, this occurs as we grow older.
2. During night time, we feel that there is not enough light in the room despite using bright lights.
3. When we are looking at something, it appears to be without colour although the colours are clearly visible to those with normal eyesight.
4. We find it difficult to focus on what we are looking at and feel that there is too much light reflected from the object that we are looking at that time.
5. It becomes necessary to change our spectacles regularly as our eyesight becomes weaker and loss of vision becomes severe.
6. While looking at something, we start seeing the same thing in duplicate images which puts a strain on our eyes and lead to permanent blindness.
7. The eyes look cloudy and we get spots on our eyes which blurs our vision and interferes with our line of sight.

Now that we have learnt some of the signs of cataract, we need to find ways to prevent it. 

A) The first thing we can do it to consult an eye specialist because as we grow older our eyesight grows weaker and if it is not checked on time then we are in danger of going blind and losing our eyesight permanently.

B) Research has shown that the chances of suffering from cataract are higher for those who are chain smokers, we tend to focus so much on how smoking affects the lungs that we forget that smoking can damage other parts of the body that are equally important to us.

C) The diet that we follow can prevent cataract, we need to not just eat fruits and vegetables but food that has vitamins such as green leafy vegetables, spinach, dried fruits, peanuts, almonds, cashew, sweet potato and beverages like, green tea, coffee etc.

D) Diabetes can also increase the risk of getting cataract so we need to stay away from foods that are high in calories and sugar because this will only lead to negative impact on your wellbeing.

E) Constant exposure to harmful ultraviolet sunlight can also lead to suffering from cataract, we need to protect our eyes by wearing sunglasses while traveling during the day.

Although we cannot prevent cataract from affecting your eyes completely we can undergo eye surgery to restore our failing eyesight, this can be done with cataract surgery where the diseased lens of the eyes are removed and replaced with artificial lens to bring the eyesight back to normal.

The good news for people suffering from cataract is that the availability of laser technology has made it possible for people including the elderly to be successfully operated upon and to have their vision restored.