Risk factors and their influence on prevalence rate of diabetic retinopathyin central Indian population

BACKGROUND AND AIM Diabetes Mellitus (DM) one of the most alarming global concerns. DM causes medical and social problems. DM leads to very high morbidity rates because of its concurrence with macro and microvascular complications. One such vision-threatening microvascular complication is Diabetic Retinopathy. DR prevalence has been varying across ethnic groups, such as Asians with 20.8% DR cases and Caucasians with 46.8% DR cases. Considering the mounting apprehensions of diabetes and its most dreading complications, this study was carried out to determine the prevalence of Diabetic Retinopathy among the patients with Diabetes Mellitus and to investigate the statistical relevance of various risk factors on the prevalence of Diabetic Retinopathy in lifestyle modification unit. METHODS AND MATERIAL Total 1100, type 2 DM patients were examined for the presence of microangiopathy like diabetic retinopathy, neuropathy, and nephropathy after taking written consent. Retina examination was done after pupil dilation with help of a Fundus camera to evaluate retinopathy. Additionally, data on demography anthropometry, blood pressure, behavioral (tobacco and smoking dietetic history), and biochemical parameters parameter(HBA1c, Blood Urea/Creatinine, Lipid profile, Thyroid profile) was obtained from all the patients. The clinically diagnosed nephropathy and neuropathy were marked by a physician after biochemical tests of blood urea and sr creatinin and physical examination and neurological examinations in all patients. The patients on Steroids and chemotherapy we excluded. RESULT There were 506 patients with one or more microangiopathy resulting into a prevalence of 46%, while 594 patients were without any such disorder. Amongst 506 cases, 355 (70.1%) patients had diabetic retinopathy with or without other angiopathy, while 151 (29.9%) had either neuropathy / nephropathy or both, but no retinopathy. Further, 355 cases were sub-divided into those with only DR (238) and those with DR and other angiopathy (117).The hospital based prevalence of DR and other angiopathy was 32.27%, while that of DR alone was 21.63.Factors like age, gender, duration of DM, thyroid, tobacco consumption, body mass index, HbA1c, systolic BP, hypertension (HTN) and cardio-vascular disease (CVD) showed statistically significant association with the disease group as indicated by P < 0.05. In other words, the prevalence of DR was statistically significantly different across the levels of these factors. The unadjusted or crude PR estimates were obtained through univariate analysis, while adjusted PR were obtained using log-binomial regression. The crude PR estimates were statistically significant for all the factors. Conclusion: The onset of diabetic retinopathy is associated with the age of subject, The duration of diabetes, gender, thyroid disease, tobacco chewers, hypertension, CAD, and glycoslated haemoglobin values. They are associated with an incresed risk of progression of retinopathy.The study was surprising do not have any significance with factors like family history of DM, Alcoholisms, smoking, WHR, BMI, diastolic blood pressure and dyslipidimia. These parametres need to evalute on larger scales to estabish there correlations. LIFESTYLE MODIFICATION UNIT SUPPORTED THE PROJECT. This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2025 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.