Who is at risk? 

Basically, anyone who has high blood sugar and lives with diabetes is at risk for diabetic retinopathy. This includes people with Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes. The National Eye Institute estimates that roughly 40 to 45 percent of people diagnosed with diabetes in the U.S. have a form of diabetic retinopathy. 

According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) in 2010 by Xinzhi Zhang et al., certain people are more prone to getting the eye disease. Experts performed a cross-sectional analysis of adults over 40 who had diabetes from 2005 to 2008. The condition was more prevalent in men than women and in non-Hispanic black individuals. They also note that diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in U.S. adults ages 20 to 74. The overall prevalence of diabetic retinopathy in the study sample was 28.5 percent. 

Aside from having diabetes, the Mayo Clinic reports that those at greater risk are people who: 

• smoke;
• have high cholesterol;
• have high-blood pressure; or
• are pregnant.