diabetes and kidney disease

What is diabetes?

Diabetes is a disease that causes high levels of glucose (sugar) in the blood. Normally your body turns the carbohydrates you eat into glucose. Your blood carries glucose to your cells, where it is used for energy or stored for later use. Insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas, helps glucose move from the blood into the cells. If you have diabetes, either your pancreas no longer makes enough insulin, or the insulin it makes doesn't get to your cells, so your body can't transport glucose from your blood to your cells and so it builds up. When your blood glucose levels remain high, excess glucose affects many parts of your body. High blood glucose levels can compromise the small blood vessels of the kidneys so that they can no longer remove fluid and waste. Many people with diabetes also have high blood pressure.

Diabetes is one of the most common causes of kidney disease. If diabetes is left untreated for a very long time, you can develop complications and one of those complications could be kidney disease.

Diabetic nephropathy is the medical term for kidney damage caused by diabetes. It can take 20 years or more for a person with diabetes to develop kidney disease.

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