Diabetes and sleep apnea are two conditions that can seriously affect a person’s life and health but imagine having the two.
Sleep apnea is life threatening and so is Type 2 Diabetes.
But how about suffering from both conditions, causing you to lose one of your five senses…not temporarily, but permanently?
This shocking danger of sleep apnea and diabetes was revealed in a new study presented at the 123rd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Ophthalmology.
Diabetes causes macular edema and sometimes blindness. It happens because high blood sugar makes the blood vessel walls in your eyes bulge outwards, causing tiny ruptures from which fluid and blood leak into your retinal tissue, resulting in inflammation and swelling in your retina.
Taiwanese scientists analyzed the information of all patients who had been diagnosed with diabetic retinopathy over an 8-year period at Chang Gung Memorial Hospital in Taiwan.
While 45.5 percent of diabetics without macular edema suffered from sleep apnea an incredible 80.6 percent of diabetics with macular edema did, proving a connection between sleep apnea and macular edema.
The studies implied that not only does high blood sugar cause macular edema; it also results in low blood oxygen levels due to breathing pauses.
Researchers have previously shown that sleep apnea causes damage to blood vessels by promoting inflammation and high blood pressure, which means the small blood vessels in diabetics eyes are also damaged by a variety of other cardiovascular factors.
Macular edema is potentially treatable via laser treatments if caught in time.