Diabetes and Your Eyes Diabetes and Your Eyes Diabetic retinopathy is a common cause of vision loss in working age Australians. If you have diabetes you need to know about diabetic retinopathy .
Diabetic retinopathy is an eye disease caused by complications of diabetes.
Image courtesty of American Academy of Ophthalmology Diabetes causes damage to the blood vessels that nourish the retina , the seeing part at the back of the eye. In people with diabetes the retinal blood vessels may expand and leak fluid. This is an early form of diabetic retinopathy called nonproliferative or background retinopathy. You may not notice any change in your vision when you develop this early form of the disease, but it can lead to other more serious forms of retinopathy that affect your vision. This is called macular edema.