Jan 15, 2014 – Diabetes and Vision

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ANCHOR LEAD: EYES ARE AFFECTED BY DIABETES, BUT FEW PEOPLE KNOW IT, ELIZABETH TRACEY
REPORTS

If you have diabetes, either type 1 or type 2, and even if your blood sugar is well-controlled, your vision may be at risk because of a condition that causes swelling inside the eye known as diabetic macular edema. Neil Bressler, a retina expert and author of a recent study on diabetic macular edema, says many people don’t know they’re at risk.

BRESSLER: Are people who have diabetic macular edema being told that diabetes can affect the back part of their eye? And unfortunately we found that through this very careful survey that about half of the people who have this specific condition, this swelling in the back of the eye, diabetic macular edema, about half of them have not been told that they have a problem with the back part of the eye, about half of them have not been told that they should have their eyes examined, and about half of them have not had or reported not to have had a good examination of the back part of their eye in the last year. :34

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.