Preventing Kidney Disease Best Way to Ensure Diabetes is Not Fatal

Preventing kidney disease could be one of the best ways to ensure that type II diabetes does not become life threatening, a new study by University of Washington researchers reveal.

The researchers said that the risk of early death among type II diabetes patients is high if they also suffer from kidney disease. The researchers followed more than 15,000 adults, both diabetic and non-diabetic, over a period of 10 years and found that over 42 percent of diabetic patients suffered from kidney disease compared to just over 9 percent among the non-diabetic participants.

Comparing the mortality rate among the participants during the study period, the researchers found that 7.7 percent of non-diabetic participants and 11.5 percent of diabetic patients without kidney disease died over the course of the study. However the rate rose by nearly three times to 31.1 percent among diabetic patients who also had kidney disease. The study has been published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

"People with type-two diabetes have many other risk factors for cardiovascular disease and mortality, so we expected that kidney disease would predict a part, but not a majority, of higher mortality", lead researcher Dr Maryam Afkarian said.



Source: Medindia