How Diabetes Leads to Diabetic Nephropathy

In China, about one out of ten people will develop into diabetes with the changing of eating habit and working style. According to the Centers for disease Control, over 17 million Americans have diabetes. Unfortunately, one third of them do not even realise that they have the disease. Approximately 45% of patients suffering from chronic kidney disease had diabetes as the major reason for this dreadful disease, where once the kidneys are damaged and unable to perform their filtration of impurities from blood, there is no recourse to medicinal cure, and the available options are dialysis (Filtering functions of kidney being substituted by a machine) or kidney transplant, where the donor and recipient have to undergo major surgery.
Link between diabetes and kidney disease goes as follows: Diabetes damages small blood vessels in the body. When the blood vessels in kidney are injured, kidneys lose their capacity to filter the impurities from blood properly. Body retains more water, salt and this results in increase in weight and swelling in the ankles. Urine contains protein. Waste materials start building up in the blood. Besides, diabetes damage nerves in the body. This causes difficulty in emptying bladder. There is a back-up pressure from the stored urine in the bladder, damaging the kidneys. Moreover, the stored urine in bladder causes infection.
The course of kidney disease: The kidney disease takes a longer time leading to kidney failure. Initially, small amounts of protein / albumin leaks into the urine. The filtration function of kidney remains normal during this period. As time passes, more albumin leaks into urine. This stage is known as 'overt diabetic nephropathy or macroalbuminuria. After this stage, filtration begins to drop. Body retains various wastes as filtration drops. Creatinine is one such waste and blood test for creatinine is used to estimate decline in kidney function. As the damage develops, blood pressure also rises.
Even though diagnosed with diabetic nephropathy, patients needn’t panic for there have been effective treatment measures to treat it.