Articles about Eye Health and Disease 2004
Associations between Cholesterol
and Triglyceride Levels with the Severity of Diabetic Retinopathy
(From Lyons TJ, et al. Invest Ophthalmol Vis Sci 2004;45:910-8)
This study was part of the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial / Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications Study (DCCT/EDIC), aimed to determine associations between
diabetic retinopathy status and detailed serum lipoprotein subclass
profiles in people with Type 1 diabetes.
Researchers from the University of Oklahoma, the Medical University of South Carolina and the University of Alabama studied 440 women and 548 men from the DCCT/EDIC
cohort. They characterized retinopathy by Early Treatment Diabetic
Retinopathy Study retinopathy scores, hard exudate (deposits within the
retina) scores, and retinopathy scores minus the hard exudate component.
They characterized lipoproteins by conventional lipid profile.
Investigators then analyzed data with and without the following factors: age, gender, duration of diabetes, HbA1c, albumin excretion rate, creatinine clearance, hypertension, body mass index, waist-hip ratio, DCCT treatment group and smoking status.
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The severity of retinopathy was positively associated with triglycerides and negatively associated with high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol (in men).
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Retinopathy was being positively associated with small and medium very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) and negatively with VLDL size.
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In men only, retinopathy was positively associated with small LDL, LDL particle concentration, apoB concentration and small HDL; it was negatively associated with large LDL, LDL size, large HDL and HDL size.
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All three measures of retinopathy revealed the same associations.
Results of the study suggests new associations between serum lipoproteins and severity of retinopathy in Type 1 diabetes. The data are consistent with a role for dyslipoproteinemia
involving lipoprotein subclasses in the pathogenesis of diabetic
retinopathy.
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