Diabetes patients in Korea are about 5 million (Korean Diabetes Association), and about 14% of those over the age of 30 are diabetic. If you include 9 million pre-diabetic patients who are at risk of developing diabetes, 14 million people have blood sugar problems. One in three adults is diabetic or pre-diabetic.
Diabetes, one of the common diseases that threaten adult health, is a type of metabolic disease in which insulin secretion is not normal or insulin resistance is increased. .
In particular, diabetic retinopathy is one of the first complications that diabetic patients should be aware of. Diabetic retinopathy is a disease in which microvessels distributed in the retina are abnormal, and components in the blood vessels leak into the retina. In the case of type 1 diabetes in children, it is known that most patients develop diabetic retinopathy as a complication within 20 years. It is reported to be as high as 70%.
Most of the early diabetic retinopathy has no symptoms, and depending on the physical condition, there are mild symptoms such as a slight decrease in visual acuity or contrast sensitivity, and many patients leave it unnoticed. However, if the initial symptoms are left unchecked, macular edema occurs when the components in the blood vessels come out of the blood vessels and thickens the macula, the center of the retina, or proliferative diabetic retinopathy, in which the retina with poor blood circulation increases and bad blood vessels occur, and visual acuity is sharp It can be seriously damaged and put you at risk of blindness.
Therefore, if you are diabetic, it is recommended to regularly check for diabetic retinopathy through thorough blood sugar control and regular eye examinations. In particular, in diabetic retinopathy, vision is maintained without macular edema even if the disease has progressed.
(Writing: SNU Cheongan and Kim Yong-dae)