This is an epidemiologic study of hospital discharge diagnoses using both national data and data from a local medical center. The results indicate that diabetes substantially increases the probability of cataract extraction at age 40-49, approximately doubles or triples this probability for age 50-69 and has little effect on risk at age 70 and above. Strengths and weaknesses of the data are discussed. Other reports generally estimating a much stronger association of diabetes with probability of cataract extraction, at least at age 50 and above, are critically evaluated.