Preventing diabetic kidney disease
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Preventing diabetic kidney disease
Diabetes is the leading cause of kidney failure in the United States. Early detection of kidney damage increases your likelihood of preventing kidney failure. Regular visits to your health professional, periodic urine tests, and lifestyle changes may decrease your risk for developing kidney disease (diabetic nephropathy), preventing kidney failure.
You should minimize your risk factors, which include:
- Smoking.
- Consistently high blood glucose levels.
- High blood pressure (hypertension).
- High cholesterol.
- Extreme insulin resistance.
You cannot control some risk factors, such as age, race (African American or Native American), and other genetic factors. But you can reduce your risk for diabetic nephropathy by not smoking, controlling both your blood glucose and your blood pressure, losing weight, and having a yearly screening test for protein in your urine.
When the kidneys are damaged by diabetes, they cannot properly filter wastes from your body and they begin to eliminate an essential protein, albumin. Your health professional can monitor your urine for the amount of albumin you are losing and use this information to detect kidney damage as early as possible.
- A microalbuminuria test detects very small amounts of protein in your urine, indicating early kidney damage. If you have small amounts of protein in your urine, your doctor will prescribe a medicine to slow the progression of the disease. Microalbuminuria also is a sign that you are at risk for heart disease.
- A macroalbuminuria test can reveal large amounts of protein in the urine, indicating severe damage to the kidneys and possible kidney failure.
The difference between these two tests is shown in the table below.
| Test | What it detects | Next steps, if you test positive |
|---|---|---|
| Microalbuminuria | Extremely small amounts of protein in your urine: This suggests early kidney damage before it is noticeable on exam or by other tests. Microalbuminuria can develop years before kidney failure occurs. |
|
| Macroalbuminuria | Larger amounts of protein in your urine; advanced kidney damage |
|
Credits
| Author | Caroline Rea, RN, BS, MS |
| Editor | Susan Van Houten, RN, BSN, MBA |
| Associate Editor | Michele Cronen |
| Associate Editor | Pat Truman, MATC |
| Primary Medical Reviewer | Caroline S. Rhoads, MD - Internal Medicine |
| Specialist Medical Reviewer | Matthew I. Kim, MD - Endocrinology & Metabolism |
| Last Updated | August 14, 2007 |
| Last updated: | August 14, 2007 |
|---|---|
| Author: | Caroline Rea, RN, BS, MS |
| Reviewed By: | Caroline S. Rhoads, MD - Internal Medicine, Matthew I. Kim, MD - Endocrinology & Metabolism |
| Editors: | Susan Van Houten, RN, BSN, MBA, Pat Truman, MATC |
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