Editorial: Recent Study Results Validate Long-Term Value Of Blood Glucose Control

Main Category: Eye Health / Blindness
Also Included In: Diabetes
Article Date: 09 Mar 2009 - 13:00 PDT

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Results of the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) study, published in the December 2008 issue of the Archives, provide more proof that tight blood glucose control after diagnosis with diabetes significantly reduces the risk of diabetic retinopathy at least 10 years later.

Previous investigators coined the term metabolic memory to describe the lasting reduction of diabetes complications following initial efforts to reduce blood glucose levels, writes Robert N. Frank, M.D., of the Wayne State University School of Medicine in a second editorial in the March issue.

"The present results of the EDIC study dramatically show the long-term benefit of initial tight glycemic control through the phenomenon of metabolic memory," he concludes. "But the presence of metabolic memory also sets a critical parameter that any proposed mechanism through which prolonged hyperglycemia [high blood glucose] leads to the complications of diabetes must fulfill to be biologically plausible."

Arch Ophthalmol. 2009;127[3]:330-331.

Archives of Ophthalmology