Diabetes Mellitus

Diabetes is one of the most common causes of developing progressive renal failure and eventually if untreated require renal dialysis.

What is the earliest sign of renal involvement by diabetes?

One of the early manifestations of renal disease secondary to diabetes is the detection of protein in the urine. This is described as Proteinuria.

Proteinuria can be detected by doing a urine test at the physician's office. Sometimes more sophistcated testing is required as the simple dipstick urine test may not detect the proteinuria. This is described as microalbuminuria.

What is Microalbuminuria?

Micoralbuminuria is abnormally increased urinary albumin excretion in the absence of clinical overt proteinuria, usually defined as the range of 20 to 200 microgram/min. This is below the sensitivity of the dipstick test.

Microalbuminuria is the most consistent predictor of development of diabetic nephropathy is microalbuminuria. Eighty per cent (80%) of patients with Microalbuminuria will develop overt nephropathy.

In both Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM), and Non Insulin dependent diabetes mellitus {NIDDM), microalbuminuria was associated with increased mortality.

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Last updated Sunday, May 27, 2001