Heart Disease Warning

An Australian study has revealed findings that eye doctors who are testing and diagnosing retinopathy are also discovering that the condition is  a pre-cursor to future heart failure even when there are no other obvious risk factors. It has been regarded in the past  that retinopathy has links to blood vessel disease as it effetcs the cell layers at the very back of the eye that are light sensitive. It was a large study group that was researched totaling just over eleven and a half thousand subjects all of which had their retinas photographed for evaluation purposes. There was a seven year follow up that showed that 5.4% of the whole group suffered from heart failure, those subjects who were already diagnosed with retinopathy however had a higher percentage  at 15.1% over those who weren't.While discounting external factors that may have effected the results. the retinopathy status subjects were still almost double the likelihood of having heart failure.It was evaluated that patients who had retinopathy should be screened for heart failure even in the absence of symptomatic  heart disease.