Long‐term Complications: Diabetic Retinopathy

Abstract

Retinopathy is a long‐term microvascular complication of diabetes, and it remains a major cause of blindness throughout the world. This chapter illustrates the standard international classification of diabetic retinopathy and describes the natural history of this disease. There is a review of the literature for prevalence and incidence studies which have been conducted in many different population groups. Risk factors for the development of diabetic retinopathy are reviewed in detail including: duration of diabetes, blood glucose control, type of diabetes, gender, blood pressure, blood cholesterol, smoking, alcohol consumption, socio‐economic factors, physical activity, pregnancy and protein..