Early sucrose-induced retinal vascular lesions in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and Wistar Kyoto rats (WKY)

Retinal capillary basement membrane damage was demonstrated over a relatively short time period (two to three months) by feeding a diet containing high amounts of sucrose to spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR) and their normotensive controls, Wistar Kyoto rats (WKY). Similar changes did not occur in SHR and WKY on a high starch diet. The early damage to the capillaries consisted of thickening of capillary basement membranes, loss of homogeneity, and inclusions containing debris. Previous studies on sucrose-induced eye lesions have reported chronic pathological changes only after prolonged periods of heavy sucrose ingestion, usually exceeding one year. Accordingly, the temporally foreshortened experimental pathogenesis offered by the SHR/WKY model allowed us to examine early changes in sucrose-induced vascular eye lesions.