Diabetes and hypertension have so many complications. In addition to stroke, kidney failure, impotence, and other organ disorders, diabetes and hypertension also increases the risk of blindness by a disease called macular degeneration.
Division staff vitreo-retinal specialist dr. Cipto Mangunkusumo (RSCM) dr Elvioza, SPM says, diabetes and hypertension are essentially damage blood vessels throughout the body, not to mention the eye. Therefore, blood flow to the eye becomes blocked, even bleeding.
In fact, he added, the eye is the organ with the highest blood flow of organs other than the kidney. In addition, blood vessels in the eye tend to be small so susceptible to damage.
According Elvioza, the eye is also the most sensitive organ to sense changes in their health. "The eye function to see. People tend to be more aware if there is a disruption in their vision," he said during a discussion in Jakarta, Thursday (01/08/2013) yesterday.
Macular degeneration is a disease of blindness caused by macular damage to the eyeball. Commonly known as the macula or yellow spots that serve to filter out damaging rays of the eye by binding free radicals emitted by blue light. This disease is a cause of blindness in the elderly.
Symptoms of this disease are being blurred vision, distortion of vision, blind spots or feel there is a blind spot on the overall vision, and color of the object that looks to be more faded.
Elvioza said, which need to be considered by people with diabetes and hypertension is to always keep the sugar levels and blood pressure. Because if allowed to remain high, it will speed up the process of destruction of blood vessels and increase the likelihood of blindness.
Moreover, he added, is also required examination of other organs at risk for complications of the disease. One of the necessary inspections are eye health examination, including the early detection of diseases such as macular degeneration.
And other efforts to prevent blindness is to maintain a healthy lifestyle such as quitting smoking, losing weight, and eating foods rich in lutein and zeaxantin pigments which are antioxidants.
In addition to macular degeneration, diabetes also have an increased risk of complications mentioned other eye disease is diabetic retinopathy. On the disease, also damage the eye's retina that leads to blindness.