Introduction: Diabetic retinopathy is a major complication of diabetes mellitus that can result in retinal vascular abnormalities and severe visual impairment. Vitamin D deficiency is involved in impaired glucose tolerance or type-2 diabetes. Vitamin D may affect the pathogenesis of diabetic retinopathy via its effects on angiogenesis by changing the presence of hypoxia inducible products, such as vascular endothelial growth factor.

Study design: It was cross-sectional study done at a tertiary centre in North India.

Results: In the Non proliferative diabetic retinopathy, proliferative diabetic retinopathy, diabetics without retinopathy and healthy controls mean serum vitamin D levels were  22.36 ± 4.90 ng/ml, 21.03 ± 6.21ng/ml, 26.44 ± 4.98 mg/dl 35.80 ± 5.20 ng/ml respectively.

Conclusion: The serum vitamin D levels were lower in Type 2 diabetic patients as compared to Healthy controls. The serum vitamin D levels were lower in diabetic patients with retinopathy as compared to diabetic patients without retinopathy. The serum vitamin D levels were slightly lower in Proliferative diabetic retinopathy patients as compared to Non proliferative diabetic retinopathy patients.