Glucose tolerance and insulin resistance/sensitivity associate with retinal layer characteristics: the LIFE-Adult-Study

Abstract Aims/hypothesis As the prevalence of insulin resistance and glucose intolerance is increasing throughout the world, diabetes-induced eye diseases are a global health burden. We aim to identify distinct optical bands which are closely related to insulin and glucose metabolism, using non-invasive, high-resolution spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) in a large, population-based dataset. Methods The LIFE-Adult-Study randomly selected 10,000 participants from the population registry of Leipzig, Germany. Cross-sectional, standardised phenotyping included the assessment of various metabolic risk markers and ocular imaging, such as SD-OCT-derived thicknesses of ten optical bands of the retina. Global and Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS) subfield-specific optical retinal layer thicknesses were investigated in 7384 healthy eyes of 7384 participants from the LIFE-Adult-Study stratified by normal glucose tolerance, prediabetes (impaired fasting glucose and/or impaired glucose tolerance and/or HbA 1c 5.7–6.4% 39–47 mmol/mol) and diabetes. The association of optical retinal band characteristics with different indices of glucose tolerance (e.g. fasting glucose, area under the glucose curve), insulin resistance (e.g. HOMA2-IR, triglyceride glucose index), or insulin sensitivity (e.g. estimated glucose disposal rate eGDR, Stumvoll metabolic clearance rate) was determined using multivariable linear regression analyses for the individual markers adjusted for age, sex and refraction. Various sensitivity analyses were performed to validate the observed findings. Results In the study cohort, nine out of ten optical bands of the retina showed significant sex- and glucose tolerance-dependent differences in band thicknesses. Multivariable linear regression analyses revealed a significant, independent, and inverse association between markers of glucose intolerance and insulin resistance (e.g. HOMA2-IR) with the thickness of the optical bands representing the anatomical retinal outer nuclear layer (ONL, standardised β =−0.096; p <0.001 for HOMA2-IR) and myoid zone (MZ; β =−0.096; p <0.001 for HOMA2-IR) of the photoreceptors. Conversely, markers of insulin sensitivity (e.g. eGDR) positively and independently associated with ONL ( β =0.090; p <0.001 for eGDR) and MZ ( β =0.133; p <0.001 for eGDR) band thicknesses. These global associations were confirmed in ETDRS subfield-specific analyses. Sensitivity analyses further validated our findings when physical activity, neuroanatomical cell/tissue types and ETDRS subfield categories were investigated after stratifying the cohort by glucose homeostasis. Conclusions/interpretation An impaired glucose homeostasis associates with a thinning of the optical bands of retinal ONL and photoreceptor MZ. Changes in ONL and MZ thicknesses might predict early metabolic retinal alterations in diabetes. Graphical Abstract