Diabetes, a chronic disease that occurs when your blood sugar is too high, can lead to a wide range of other health problems, including several eye diseases that can negatively affect your vision. Learn more about the connections between diabetes, eye health, and vision.*

About Diabetes and Vision Loss

When you have diabetes, your body can’t make and/or use insulin, a chemical that transports sugar from your blood cells to other cells that use the sugar for energy. This inability to make insulin results in too much sugar being left in your blood, and it can lead to further health complications that include eye diseases such as:

• Diabetic retinopathy, 
• Diabetic macular edema, and
• Glaucoma.

Diabetic Retinopathy

Diabetic retinopathy (DR) is the most common eye condition resulting from diabetes, affecting more than 7 million Americans aged 40 and above. It occurs when small blood vessels in the retina of the eye become damaged. The retina, a thin tissue in the back of each eye, receives light and translates it into electrical impulses that travel up the optic nerve to the brain. The brain, in turn, translates those signals into visual images.

Diabetes, or high blood sugar, can damage blood vessels by:

• Sticking to the inside walls of small blood vessels, preventing bloodflow to organs
• Causing fatty deposits to form in blood vessels, making them narrow and hard
• Promoting oxidative stress, which leads to inflammation
• Irritating the vessel walls 

Damage to your ocular blood vessels from any of these actions can cause them to weaken, burst, leak blood, and shut down, negatively affecting your vision. 

The longer you’ve had diabetes, the greater chance you have of developing retinopathy. 

Diabetic Macular Edema 

Diabetic macular edema (DME) is a complication of diabetic retinopathy. It involves fluid buildup in the macula, the center of the retina (where your vision is usually sharpest) and plays a key role in central vision. 

The macula helps you see:

• Colors, 
• Small details (e.g. reading, facial recognition), and 
• Objects at a distance. 

Diabetic retinopathy leads to DME when your retina is unable to absorb anymore fluid from the burst blood vessels. When it’s overwhelmed, the macula swells and can cause:

• Blind spots
• Blurry, double, or wavy vision
• Difficulty with visual details 
• Dulling of colors
• Floaters
• Total vision loss

Vision loss from DME can progress over the course of months.

Glaucoma

Glaucoma is a group of eye conditions in which the optic nerve is damaged, interfering with the transport and translation of light signals between the eyes and the brain. While not all people with glaucoma have diabetes, studies suggest that adult diabetics are twice as likely as non-diabetics to develop glaucoma, particularly open-angle glaucoma, the most common type. 

Diabetic retinopathy can also lead to a rare glaucoma type called neovascular glaucoma.

In advanced stages of diabetic retinopathy, the iris (colored part) of the eye can begin generating new, abnormal, blood vessels to help bring more blood to the retina. The new blood vessel growth can cause scarring, causing higher eye pressure that leads to glaucoma. 

It’s important to take care of your overall health, control your blood sugar and blood pressure, and get your eyes checked regularly.

*Glaucoma Research Foundation. (n.d.). Diabetes and Your Eyesight. Retrieved from https://glaucoma.org/articles/diabetes-and-your-eyesight 

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