Controlling Blood Pressure Helps Prevent Vision Loss

UK researchers recently reported that people who have diabetes are prone to develop damage to their retinas, but tight control of blood pressure slows the progression of this complication and helps prevent vision loss. They studied 1,148 patients who had type-2 diabetes and high blood pressure who were assigned randomly to either a tight or a less-tight blood pressure control strategy for an average of 9.3 years. Compared with less-tight blood pressure control, the researchers associated tight control with a significant reduction in all types of retinal damage. Tight control also reduced the risk of blindness in one eye by about 25%.

The researchers reported their results in the November 2004 issue of Archives of Ophthalmology .