At least two percent of the United States population has cataracts at any given time.
But doctors say cataract removal is relatively easy.
If your vision becomes blurred, it could be you are suffering from cataracts.
"A cataract is opacification, clouding or yellowing or browning of the lens of the eye and the way you tell it is, your vision begins to get foggy or blurry and glasses and things don't correct it," said ophthalmologist Dr. George Nardin.
Experts tell us cataracts may be formed on the lens by trauma, disease - and something in Hawaii we should be conscious of - ultra-violet rays.
"There are many causes and we know that genetics plays a role in it, but age is overwhelmingly what we think of as contributory," said Dr. George Nardin.
Dr. Nardin talked with us last week about glaucoma and that can also lead to cataracts. Unlike many diseases of the human body, there is really nothing that can be done to prevent cataracts.
"There's no medical management for that and we do surgery, we take the cataract out and then we implant usually an artificial lens to replace the cataract that we've removed," said Dr. Nardin.
Dr. Nardin told us cataract surgery is the simplest and one of the most successful surgeries that can be performed. And depending on the patient's health and age, it's quite possible the patient's vision could actually improve.
"We actually in many cases can do better than what they had before hand because we have the option at the time of cataract surgery to select the lens power we put in an eye, so we can do a lot of correcting of near-sightedness and far-sightedness that existed before the cataract," said said Dr. George Nardin.
