{"id":1460,"date":"2025-07-03T14:17:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T19:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/?p=1460"},"modified":"2025-04-24T14:15:15","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T19:15:15","slug":"how-does-diabetes-glaucoma-puts-millions-at-risk-for-unexpected-blindness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/how-does-diabetes-glaucoma-puts-millions-at-risk-for-unexpected-blindness\/","title":{"rendered":"How Does Diabetic Glaucoma Puts Millions At Risk for Unexpected Blindness?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Diabetic Glaucoma <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Unexpected sight loss is more common than you may think. Blindness often happens without prior warning signs and in people unaware they are at risk.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The two most common culprits of unexpected sight loss are diabetes and glaucoma.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">These diseases are known as the &#8220;sneak thieves of sight&#8221; because symptoms may not occur in the early stages. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">By the time a person realizes something is wrong, irreversible vision loss often occurs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Diabetic eye disease is the leading cause of blindness in adults. An average of 55 Americans go blind from the disease each day.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The numbers threaten to rise sharply as diabetes becomes increasingly common due to poor eating habits, infrequent exercise, and an aging population.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">One in three children born in the United States five years ago is expected to become diabetic during their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Diabetes causes a partial or complete loss of vision in as many as 70 percent of those who have it. Yet 30 percent of all people who have diabetes don&#8217;t even know they have it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Even people who know they have diabetes downplay the risks they face.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">In reality, diabetics will develop serious complications that could lead to loss of sight or a limb, or kidney failure.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Glaucoma<\/strong>, on the other hand, is a group of eye diseases that slowly damage the fine nerves that connect the eye to the brain.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">For most people, this damage occurs when the pressure in the eye is too high. When these nerves are damaged, vision loss may result.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Glaucoma is the second-leading cause of blindness in the United States. But like diabetes, not enough people know about it. An estimated 4.2 million Americans have glaucoma, but half are not aware of it.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Diabetes and glaucoma are especially prevalent among blacks and Hispanics.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">These groups are believed to have a genetic predisposition to the diseases and are much more at risk than Caucasians.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Others, particularly at risk for glaucoma, are people over 60, those with a family history of glaucoma, diabetics, and the very near-sighted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">The good news for those at risk is that a dilated eye exam can detect the two diseases, and early treatment can prevent vision loss. Vision experts urge at-risk people to have regular eye exams.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: verdana, geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Raising awareness of diabetic eye disease and glaucoma is key to preventing unnecessary blindness.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Diabetic Glaucoma Unexpected sight loss is more common than you may think. Blindness often happens without prior warning signs and in people unaware they are&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"slim_seo":{"title":"How Does Diabetic Glaucoma Puts Millions At Risk for Unexpected Blindness? - Diabetes","description":"Diabetic Glaucoma Unexpected sight loss is more common than you may think. Blindness often happens without prior warning signs and in people unaware they are at"},"_slim_seo_primary_term_category":0,"_slim_seo_primary_term_post_tag":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diabetes","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mickeylieberman.com\/diabetes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}