Diabetes and glaucoma linked

A study of women in the US over the last 20 years suggests that type 2 diabetes could be associated with primary open angle glaucoma, which is the most common form of the disease . Researchers at the Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary uncovered the findings.
The study data was taken from over 76,000 women who were enrolled in the Nurses Health Study from 1980 to 2000. Participants in the study were at least 40 years old and did not suffer from POAG at the start of the study. The team factored in age, race, hypertension and family history to get their results.
The study is published in the July issue of the journal Ophthalmology, and the results supports the notion that type 2 diabetes is associated with an increased risk of glaucoma. Dr Louis Pasquale, the lead author and an assistant professor of ophthalmology at the Harvard Medical School said that: “while obesity fuels the type 2 diabetes epidemic, it appears that factors unrelated to obesity contribute to the positive association between type 2 diabetes and glaucoma.”