People with diabetic eye disease who took a GLP-1 drug were less likely to develop diabetic macular edema over seven years than similar patients taking metformin, according to a poster presented at the 2026 American Academy of Ophthalmology annual meeting in New Orleans. The difference did not appear in the first year. It emerged gradually and was largest at the seven-year mark.
The findings were summarized by AJMC, which reported on the poster and a companion poster on glaucoma surgery. Both are observational analyses presented as abstracts. Neither has been published as a full peer-reviewed study, and neither shows that GLP-1 drugs cause the lower rates.
