Diabetic men with high progesterone prone to diabetic retinopathy

High serum progesterone is indicative of diabetic retinopathy (DR) in men with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), a new study finds.

Researchers conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 1,376 male T2DM patients. DR was assessed through fundus examination, slit lamp microscopy, and noninvasive optical coherence tomography. Participants were categorized into three: nonproliferative DR (NPDR), proliferative DR (PDR), and no DR.

Levels of serum progesterone changed significantly across different categories of DR, jumping from a median of 0.68 nmol/L in the no-DR group to 0.86 nmol/L among NPDR patients, and finally to 1.51 nmol/L in men with PDR (p<0.001).

Prolactin, luteinizing hormone, and testosterone also showed significant between-group variability.

Patients were then stratified according to quartiles of serum progesterone. Notable variations were found in the prevalence of DR. NPDR, for example, was significantly more common in the topmost quartile than in the three lower categories (45.4 percent vs 35.2 percent, 31.0 percent, and 33.7 percent; p=0.001).

The same was true for PDR (7.1 percent vs 1.2 percent, 0.9 percent, and 2.3 percent; p<0.001). No DR, on the other hand, saw peak prevalence in the first quartile of serum progesterone and dropped thereafter.

Adjusted logistic regression models confirmed that being in the top quartile of serum progesterone more than doubled the likelihood of having NPDR (odds ratio [OR], 2.13, 95 percent confidence interval [CI], 1.49–3.06; p<0.001) and amplified the odds of PDR by over eight times (OR, 8.44, 95 percent CI, 2.69–26.43; p<0.001).