Diabetes, Fasting Glucose, and the Risk of Glaucoma

Topic

We performed a systematic review to summarize the association of diabetes and blood glucose levels with glaucoma, intraocular pressure (IOP), and ocular hypertension in the general population.

Clinical Relevance

Diabetes has been proposed as a risk factor for glaucoma, but epidemiologic studies have been inconsistent, and the association is still controversial. Furthermore, no systematic reviews evaluated other metabolic abnormalities, such as the metabolic syndrome, with the risk of glaucoma.

Methods

We identified the studies by searching the PubMed and EMBASE databases. We used inverse-variance weighted random-effects models to summarize relative risks across studies.

Results

We identified 47 studies including 2 981 342 individuals from 16 countries. The quality of evidence generally was higher in the cohort compared with case-control or cross-sectional studies. The pooled relative risk for glaucoma comparing patients with diabetes with those without diabetes was 1.48 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.29–1.71), with significant heterogeneity across studies (I² = 82.3%; P < 0.001). The risk of glaucoma increased by 5% (95% CI, 1%–9%) for each year since diabetes diagnosis. The pooled average difference in IOP comparing patients with diabetes with those without diabetes was 0.18 mmHg (95% CI, 0.09–0.27; I² = 73.2%), whereas the pooled average increase in IOP associated with an increase in 10 mg/dl in fasting glucose was 0.09 mmHg (95% CI, 0.05–0.12; I² = 34.8%).

Conclusions

Diabetes, diabetes duration, and fasting glucose levels were associated with a significantly increased risk of glaucoma, and diabetes and fasting glucose levels were associated with slightly higher IOP.