Blindness, causes diabetic retinopathy

Long-term complications exact a terrible toll of morbidity and mortality on patients with diabetes mellitus. For example, patients with diabetes have about a 25-fold increased risk for becoming blind over that of the general population. Diabetic retinopathy is one of the most common causes of visual loss and accounts for about 12% of new cases of blindness each year in the United States alone [5]. 

Pathologic neovascularization of the retina is central to several debilitating ocular diseases including proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR), age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Diabetic retinopathy (primarily retinal NV) and the wet form of AMD (primarily choroidal NY) are the leading causes of blindness in developed countries. 

Figure 30.1. Causes of blindness (best-corrected visual acuity <6/60 [<20/200] in the better-seeing eye) by race/ethnicity. AMD indicates age-related macular degeneration DR, diabetic retinopathy. Reproduced with permission from Congdon N, O Colmain B, Klaver CC, Klein R, Munoz B, Friedman DS, Kempen J, Taylor HR, Mitchell P, Eye Diseases Prevalence Research Group (2004) Causes and prevalence of visual impairment among adults in the United States. Arch Ophthalmol 122 477 85.

Diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in people aged 20-74 years in the United States and causes from 12,000 to 24,000 new cases of blindness each year. Manifestations of diabetic retinopathy include retinal microaneurysms, hemorrhages, hard exudates, cotton-wool spots, microvascular abnormalities, growth of abnormal blood vessels and fibrous tissue, and macular edema (2). It was estimated that of the 7.8 million patients affected with diabetes in 1993, 95,000 are expected to develop macular edema each year (3). 

Ocular diseases such as diabetic retinopathy can cause significant blindness. The past decade has witnessed OCT becoming a preferred imaging modality in the diagnosis and study of ocular disease. Recent developments in spectral domain OCT have enabled unprecedented imaging speed compared with conventional time domain OCT. In vivo imaging of mouse retinas can be a indispensable tool for smdying various structural alterations in animal disease models[43,117]. 

Visual disorders affect over 160 million people worldwide, of whom 37 million are blind. Major causes of blindness include cataracts, glaucoma, age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy [1]. 

Collagen. This may explain the problems of arthritis experienced by many diabetic subjects, as well as the thickening of basement membranes that is associated with blood capillary and kidney damage. Diabetic retinopathy, a cause of blindness, is the result of capillary damage in the retina. 

One of the most serious diabetic complications is retinopathy, which could cause blindness. Retinopathy occurs when the body attempts to repair the leaking and damaged capillaries, which are caused by overproduction of abnormal proteins. Anthocyanins could prevent the capillaries from leaking in the first place, at the same time anthocyanins also could prevent the abnormal protein production. Thirty out of 40 people with retinopathy showed significant improvement after taking 120 mg anthocyanin daily for several weeks. However, the control subjects showed no apparent improvement [47]. 

---