Archives: Researchers are curious as to why diabetes reduces the risk of ocular hypertensives converting to glaucoma, considering that diabetes damages the vascular system, and thus poor blood flow to the optic nerve would seem to make glaucoma more likely. They subjected rats to high glucose levels and high pressure and  then analyzed optic nerve and retinal ganglion cell damage profiles, and noted a definite delay in cell death in the high glucose group. They speculate that energy metabolism is better in the high glucose group and perhaps that explains the improvement in diabetes.