Abstinence to avoid people with diabetes is not just sugar and sugary foods, but also stress. Research shows, people with diabetes who have high risk for stress suffered serious damage to eyes.

Serious damage that can strike people with diabetes when stress occurs in the retina, so called diabetic retinophaty. Most are permanent, so that diabetic retinophaty also the most common cause of blindness in age group 25-74 years.

During this time, the risk of diabetic retinophaty more often associated with unhealthy lifestyles, including lack of exercise, frequent smoking and obesity. All three lead to type 2 diabetes, so that poorly controlled blood sugar levels and can lead to retinal damage.

Recently, Wayne Katon MD from the University of Washington Medical School revealed that depression also increase the risk of diabetic retinophaty. The higher the level of stress experienced by people with diabetes, the greater the risk of damage to the retina.

In his research, Katon studied 2359 patients with diabetes who become participants in the Epidemiologic Study Pathways. Measured participants’ level of stress on dengna Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9), a sort of questionnaire to detect symptoms of depression.

Having observed for 5 years, diabetic retinophaty affects 22.9 percent of patients with PHQ-9 scores categorized as high or severe depression. The number is far greater than patients without depression, which is only about 19.7 percent.

The analysis showed, the higher levels of stress a person with diabetes is a risk of developing diabetic retinophaty bigger. Any increase in PHQ-9 scores by 5 points, the risk of retinal damage increased by around 15 percent.

“These findings suggest that changes in psikobiologi associated with depression may increase cortisol levels and activity of the compounds trigger blood clotting. These are all associated with diabetic retinophaty,” Katon said as quoted from Bmedreport.

Pupblikasi results of this study have been published in the journal General Hospital Psychiatry current issue.