Diabetes and your vision: preventing sight loss

One of the complications resulting from diabetes is vision loss, but with close monitoring, that doesn't have to be the case. There's are a few steps that can be taken to avoid completely losing your eyesight to diabetes.

The most important thing to know is that it might be possible to see your way clear of eye problems altogether. Close blood-sugar monitoring and control can make a big difference. In a large study called the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial, risk reduction from good blood-glucose control was larger for eye disease (76 percent) than for any other diabetes complication.

• You also need to know that if eye problems do emerge, they can be treated if they're caught early. So, frequent eye exams are extra important for people with diabetes.

Diabetes-related eye problems, left untreated, are serious. Here are need-to-know basics.

1. Most eye damage from diabetes takes place in the retina, the light-sensitive area at the back of the eye that registers visual signals and sends them to the brain through the optic nerve.
2. High blood sugar (especially when combined with high blood pressure) can weaken small blood vessels that supply the eye with oxygen and nutrients, causing the vessels to puff up and rupture — a condition known as nonproliferative retinopathy.
3. In some cases, leakage and lack of nourishment can directly damage the retina and make your vision blurry, but in many cases you may not notice anything at all.
4. Be vigilant about any changes you see, and report them to your doctor.

Twenty percent of people with type 2 diabetes already have signs of retinopathy when they're diagnosed.

• After 15 years, the figure increases to between 60 and 85 percent — but only 20 percent of people with diabetes advance to the more serious proliferative retinopathy.
• As for people with type 1, most have retinopathy at the 15-year mark, and by then half have progressed to more serious eye disease.