| 28 August |
|
Diabetes - Two Steps You Must Take to Avoid Vision Loss
Back in the 1950’s and 60’s most people didn’t rate diabetes as a major problem. Back then, all the focus was on dealing with more prominent diseases such as polio and tuberculosis. If diabetes was thought about, it was more in the context of cutting out sugar in your coffee, rather than as a serious threat to your eyesight or your life.
That’s all changing. It’s not too much to say that diabetes is now reaching epidemic levels in most of the western world. According to the American Diabetes Association there are over 20 million diabetics in the United States alone, with a staggering one third undiagnosed. It’s also going to get a lot worse with another 41 million Americans already showing pre-diabetic signs.
Diabetes is a disease that mostly affects blood vessels and in its extreme forms can lead to serious heart disease, stroke and kidney damage. Clearly these life threatening diabetic vascular diseases deserve priority attention, but high on the critical list for diabetics is the risk of serious eye disease and loss of vision.
Vision is one of our most critical senses and in this “need for speed” information era, over 70% of our sensory information comes through our eyes. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, diabetics are 25 times more likely to lose vision than those who are not diabetic. With diabetes already being the number one cause of blindness in the United States, it’s no wonder eye care professionals are predicting a devastating increase in vision loss as the diabetic epidemic grows alarmingly.
Newly diagnosed diabetics often have nothing more than minor vision fluctuations which settle when blood sugar levels improve with treatment. Early on it’s cushy to believe everything is fine. After some years though, continuing high blood sugar can gradually alteration the blood vessels at the back of the eye in the retina. This causes a problem called - Click here to read more ...