Table 5

Selected epidemiological studies on socio economic and medical risk factors of nuclear, cortical, and posterior subcapsular cataracts in Asia

			Associations with any cataract, specific cataract types and cataract surgery*
Location, year	Population	Study type	Any/mxed cataract	Nuclear cataract	Cortical cataract	PSC cataract	Cataract surgery
*Associations with age, sex, race, ocular diseases (eg, myopia), nutritional supplements (eg, vitamin use) or drug use (eg, aspirin) not included.
†SES = socioeconomic status, includes a variety of measures, such as education, type of residence (eg, rural) and income.
‡Outdoor lifestyle: intended to be an indirect measure of ultraviolet light. The New Delhi study (36) included outdoor occupation, time spent living at altitude, and estimated exposure to direct sunlight.
BMI = body mass index, PSC = posterior subcapsular.
Punjab, India, 1982³⁵	1269	Population based survey	Lower weight	–	–	–	–
	Age: 30–80+		Lower weight
			Lower SES†
New Delhi, India, 1989³⁶	1990	Case-control study	Lower BMI	Lower BMI			–
	Age 37–62		Lower SES†	Higher systolic BP	Lower SES†	Lower SES†
			Higher systolic BP	Outdoor lifestyle‡	Outdoor lifestyle‡	Outdoor lifestyle‡
			Outdoor lifestyle‡
Taipei, Taiwan³⁹	2038	Population based survey	Diabetes	Smoking	Higher systolic BP	Diabetes	–
	Age: 50–93		Higher diastolic BP		Higher diastolic BP
Singapore	1206 Chinese	Population based survey	Diabetes		Diabetes,	Diabetes,	Diabetes
	Age: 40–81		Lower BMI	Lower SES†	Lower BMI,	Lower SES†
			Lower SES†	Smoking	Lower SES†