The study enrolled total 400 subjects: 200 subjects having diabetes mellitus (DM) without retinopathy as controls and 200 subjects having diabetic retinopathy (DR) as cases. Fasting plasma sugar, Total Cholesterol (TC), TG, HDL, LDL & HbA1c, was done for each patient. Statistically significant positive correlation between severity of DR with TC P=0.000(r =0.972), LDL P = 0.000(r = 0.874), TG P = 0.000(r =0.917), was documented. DR was also strongly positively correlated with duration of diabetes P = .00001. There was strong inverse correlation of DR with HDL P = 0.001(r = –0.728). Serum lipids were significantly correlated with severity of DR.