Prediabetes and Retinopathy
Retinopathy is a
disease of the retina. There are various
forms of the disease. For example, there is
hypertensive retinopathy and there is diabetic
retinopathy. Treatment and prevention of these
diseases involves controlling high blood
pressure and blood glucose levels. And of course, a
yearly eye exam is critically important for those
persons with retinopathy. Diabetic retinopathy is
the most common form of the disease. And this type
of retinopathy is one of the principal causes of
vision loss worldwide. At least two studies have
linked prediabetes to a high level of retinopathy.
Prediabetes is where there is a higher than normal
level of glucose in the blood, but the elevated
level is not high enough to be deemed diabetes. For
some time, it was known that prediabetes was often
followed by diabetes. So, a study was designed to
look into the progression from prediabetes to
diabetes. The Diabetes Prevention Program trial was
done between 1996 and 2001. The researchers looked
at how prediabetes could lead to diabetes. It was
found that prediabetes raises the risk of type 2
diabetes, and treating prediabetes could delay or
prevent type 2 diabetes is many cases.
Further investigation
into the incidence of retinopatyh among
persons with prediabetes was done after the original
Diabetes Prevention Program study. The researchers
looked at a subset of the participants in the
original study. There were 3224 participants in the
original Diabetes Prevention Program study. The
subset consisted of 302 participants. The
researchers "found detectable retinopathy in 7.6% of
patients," who had prediabetes. So, retinopathy can
be associated with prediabetes.
In another
study, to determine a relationship between
retinopathy and prediabetes, researchers examined
articles in MEDLINE, EMBASE, PubMed, Web of Science,
CINAHL, Google Scholar and the Cochrane databases.
After examining 5994 abstracts and 98 full-text
articles, the researchers chose twenty-four studies
for their analysis. The twenty-four studies
consisted of 8759 participants with prediabetes. The
researchers concluded that there was a 6.6% rate of
retinopathy among persons with prediabetes compared
with 3.2% for populations with normal levels of
blood glucose.
The above studies indicate that healthcare providers
may want to examine the eyes of patients with
prediabetes. The providers may detect early signs of
retinopathy. And this would be beneficial to the
patient and the provider.
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