“It seems like there’s something about retinopathy itself,” Lin said. That is, the eye disease may give insight into what’s happening in the blood vessels of the brain.
“It’s really true that the eye is the window to the brain,” she said.
Lin encouraged people with retinopathy to work with their doctor to get control of their risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which includes stroke and heart disease. That means reining in conditions like high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol.
Those measures are also key in limiting vision loss from retinopathy. Beyond that, injectable medications and laser surgery are options for more severe cases, according to the NEI.
The findings support adding retinopathy to the list of factors doctors consider in gauging patients’ stroke risk, according to Daniel Lackland, a volunteer expert with the stroke association.
That’s, in part, because detecting retinopathy is fairly simple, said Lackland, who is also a professor of epidemiology at the Medical University of South Carolina.
“And then we can work on strategies for preventing a stroke, if a person seems to have a high risk,” Lackland noted.
If people are already being treated for conditions like high blood pressure, would a retinopathy diagnosis change anything? Maybe not, though Lin said patients could be screened for memory impairment, or possibly referred for a brain MRI to look for tissue damage or problems with the blood vessels.
On the flip side, Lin said, people with cardiovascular risk factors should see an ophthalmologist to check their eye health.
More Information
The U.S. National Eye Institute has more on retinopathy.
