Does Nearsightedness Reduce the Risk of Diabetic Retinopathy?
To learn more about factors that may reduce diabetic retinopathy (DR) risk, Laurence Shen Lim, MRCS, and colleagues at the Singapore National Eye Centre, studied how refractive error (vision worse than 20/20, without glasses) relates to the presence and severity of DR. Earlier, smaller studies had suggested a protective effect for nearsightedness (myopia), but were inconclusive. Dr. Lim’s study is the first to include axial length (AL, measured from the front to back of the eye) in an analysis of the myopia-DR relationship. About 10 percent of people with diabetes develop DR, which damages the eye’s retina, the specialized tissue where images are focused for relay to the brain’s visual cortex. DR is a major cause of vision loss worldwide. Reduced risk of DR, especially severe DR, was found in patients whose myopia resulted from two anatomical characteristics: longer axial length and deeper anterior eye chamber (anterior chamber depth, ACD). The findings held true for all degrees of ref
