ArticleJournal of diabetes2026
Diabetic Retinopathy Severity and Heart Failure Outcomes in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
Article in Journal of diabetes, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundThe precise link between diabetic retinopathy and incident heart failure remains unclear, largely limited by a lack of echocardiographic data. This study evaluated how the clinical severity of retinopathy relates to incident heart failure and baseline cardiac function in individuals with type 2 diabetes.
methodsThis retrospective cohort study (2005-2021) included adults with type 2 diabetes receiving structured management and color fundus imaging. Retinopathy was classified as absent, mild nonproliferative, or moderate-to-severe nonproliferative to proliferative. A specific subcohort received baseline transthoracic echocardiography. Relationships between cardiac function parameters and retinal damage were assessed using ordinal logistic regression with inverse probability weighting. Incident heart failure risk was determined utilizing Cox proportional hazards and Poisson regression models.
resultsAmong 21 773 participants, heart failure was independently associated with advanced retinopathy (OR, 1.23). After inverse probability weighting (IPW), associations with systolic dysfunction (unweighted OR, 1.96; IPW-adjusted OR, 2.01) and diastolic dysfunction were significant, with the latter explicitly unmasked by IPW (unweighted OR, 1.08 vs. IPW-adjusted OR, 1.17). The risk for incident heart failure escalated alongside progressive retinal damage. Compared to patients presenting without retinopathy, the adjusted incidence rate ratios were 1.64 for the mild group and 1.86 for those with moderate-to-severe or proliferative disease, an association partially mediated by renal function decline.
conclusionsDiabetic retinopathy severity associates with systolic and diastolic dysfunction and is an independent risk factor for incident heart failure in type 2 diabetes. Routine retinal evaluation serves as a practical clinical indicator for assessing systemic microvascular damage and cardiovascular risk.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.