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As the number of people in the United States suffering from diabetes rises, so does the rate of vision loss among Americans, a new study has found.

Such nonrefractive visual impairment is serious and cannot be corrected by glasses. Instead, it requires surgery or laser treatment, said David Friedman, one of the authors of the study, which was published this month in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Regular Eye Care is Required

Friedman and his team found a 21 percent increase in nonrefractive visual impairment when comparing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1999-2002 and 2005-2008. The samples were representative of the American population.

“This is real, meaningful vision loss,” Friedman, director of the Dana Center for Preventive Ophthalmology and a professor of public health ophthalmology at the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, told Bloomberg News. “We need to do everything we can to try to avoid diabetes altogether and make sure people diagnosed with diabetes are getting repeat eye care to treat anything that develops.”

Among the study’s findings, Mexican-Americans — especially those 60 and older — had the highest increase in vision loss. In addition, non-Hispanic whites ages 20 to 39 had a 40 percent increase, according to Bloomberg.

Actos Also Affects Eyesight

This news is particularly troubling given that one of the most popular drugs used to treat type 2 diabetes, Takeda Pharmaceuticals‘ Actos, also is linked to increased complications of the eyes. In particular, Actos patients need to know that the drug has been associated with the onset or worsening of macular edema, which is the swelling of the retina caused by fluid or protein deposits.

A study published in the summer of 2012 in the Archives of Internal Medicine reported that 1.3 percent of patients who took a thiazolidinedione (TZD) drug, such as Actos, for a year were found to have macular edema. Patients with diabetes who did not take the medication had an incidence rate of 0.2 percent. After adjusting for variables such as age and the use of other medications, the study found Actos users face a 2.3-fold elevated risk after one-year and 10-year follow-ups.

Diabetic macular edema is a widespread concern in the United States because it can lead to blindness, if untreated. And the FDA reports that 3.9 million adults with diabetes said they had trouble seeing in 2010.

In August, the FDA approved a new drug to treat macular edema: Lucentis. The guidelines for administering the monthly injections require physicians to make sure patients are controlling their blood sugar, or glucose, levels. To do so, though, patients may turn to Actos, which in turn can further damage a diabetes patient’s eyesight.