IL1B and diabetes mellitus: Furthermore, activation of NF-kB elevates IL-1β, and IL-1β plays an important role in retinal capillary cell death and the formation of acellular capillaries, the microvascular pathology that is characteristic of retinopathy in diabetes, and the antioxidants, which inhibit the development of diabetic retinopathy in rodent models, also inhibit diabetes-induced increases in retinal IL-1β [17,31,46].