In 2005, it was estimated that there were 20.8 million children and adults who are afflicted by this disease. That is pretty close to 7% of the population. Of those, 14.6 million people were diagnosed, but 6.2 million people were thought to have diabetes but were undiagnosed. Additionally, nearly fifty four million children and adults are pre-diabetic with 1 1/2 million new disease found in people over 20, showing up yearly.
Diabetes is the number one cause of renal disease. For a fact, hypertension and diabetes are the primary causes of kidney disease, causing probably 70 percent of renal failure with diabetes accounting of 44 percent of kidney failure cases. The early stages of kidney disease have no symptoms . It attacks your body and eventually when it is finally detected, the injury is so great that it often is too involved to prevent kidney failure. Once your kidneys fail, you have two options: dialysis or kidney transplant. If you do not receive either one of these, you will eventually die.
How Diabetes causes Renal Disease
When both kidneys are working as they should, the glomeruli (tiny filters that are in the kidneys) keep your serum proteins inside of your blood. Protein is necessary for quite a few operations inside of your body and are required to keep you healthy. Diabetes causes a greater concentration of glucose in the blood which damages the glomeruli. The result is that they are no longer effective in keeping the protein in the body and it leaks into the urine from the glomeruli.
When kidneys are damaged they no longer function correctly and do not cleanse our extra fluids and waste as they should. When this occurs, the waste and fluids build up in the body instead of being expelled in the urine. The longer this happens, the worse the damage becomes until the kidneys eventually cease to function.
The Progression of Renal Disease
It can take years for kidney disease from diabetes to develop. Some people experience hyperfiltration in the first few years of their having diabetes. This means that the glomeruli actually function at a much higher capacity than normal. Once damage starts, however, it is progressive. As a person develops kidney disease, they will have a blood protein named albumin that finally starts to flow into the urine in small amounts. At that time, normally the glomeruli are really working normally.
The progression of the disease leads to more protein passing into the urine and the glomeruli begin to systematically fail as the filtering mechanism begins to decrease. Waste is kept in the body because of the filtration failure. As a result, the kidneys fail.
How to Prevent Kidney Problems if you have Diabetes
Having diabetes, you can often prevent kidney problems. Use these suggestions to keep your kidneys healthy: * Control your blood sugar by maintaining a healthy diet and exercising regularly * Take your medication according to your doctors orders * Have your physician test your blood and urine regularly for kidney problems * If the urine test shows that you do have kidney problems, consider medications like ACE inhibitors and ARBs that can help keep your kidneys healthy.
A diagnosis of diabetes does not have to mean kidney disease. As long as you stay on top of your condition, manage it well and follow your physician's orders, there is no reason that you can't live a long, healthy, happy life - without kidney disease.
