Effect of Diabetic Control on Retinopathy

This paper presents an analysis of the literature regarding the effect of control of diabetes on retinopathy. In diabetics with age of onset before forty years of age and with a duration greater than fifteen years, there is a significantly higher incidence of retinopathy in those judged to have been under poor control than in those with better control. Those patients with poor control had a significantly higher incidence of the more severe forms of diabetic retinopathy. While this association does not necessarily imply a cause and effect relationship, it is not compatible with a point of view which accepts poor control as of little consequence in diabetes.