Can cataracts be passed down genetically? Yes, cataracts can be passed down genetically. There are cases of congenital cataracts at birth, which is hereditary. Cataracts can run in some families, in such a way that the infection is passed down from the parent to the children. Though cataracts are rare in developed countries, they occur frequently in developing countries, and more frequently in underdeveloped countries.
Cataracts have bad lifelong impacts on the infected people, and they disrupt normal development of the eyes. Over half of the scenario whereby the two eyes are infected with cataracts are based on genetics. Congenital cataracts are both genetically and clinically heterogeneous; though the inheritance of autosomal recessive and X linked are not that common, autosomal dominant trait produces isolated congenital cataracts. When babies are born with cataracts, in the first instance they do not obviously feel any defect in their sight until they reach their middle age of about 40 years upward, then the infection starts having more impacts, and the ineffectiveness insight would be well noticed.