Diabetes messes with the body's metabolism, which can result in devastating complications like nerve damage, kidney disease, and vision loss.

By capturing a snapshot of the eye, scientists in Michigan say that they can pick up telltale signs of metabolic stress in the retina caused by diabetes. They say that the new imaging technology may offer a quick, noninvasive way of detecting the disease early and monitoring its progress.

"With just a minute in an optometrist's office, you might be able to detect metabolic stress in the eye, refer the patient to an endocrinologist, and get a diagnosis," says Howard Petty, a biophysicist and imaging expert at the University of Michigan's Kellogg Eye Center and one of the authors of a study that appears in the latest issue of the Archives of Ophthalmology.

Via Technology Review