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Diabetic Nephropathy

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Diabetic Nephropathy or Diabetic Kidney Disease is a syndrome that has been generally defined as disease in which there is increased protein excretion in urine. It is commonly characterized by the presence of pathological quantities of albumin in urine that is excreted from the patient’s body, diabetic glomerular lesions, and loss of glomerular filtration rate (GFR) in diabetics. It can be categorized into stages: microalbuminuria and macroalbuminuria. The early stage is usually characterized by a small increase in urinary albumin excretion (UAE), and it is also called microalbuminuria or incipient Diabetic nephropathy while a more advanced disease that is characterized by the presence of proteinuria is called macroalbuminuria or overt Diabetic …show more content…

It is often associated with cardiovascular diseases which cause an increase in the mortality of diabetic patients. According to Duran-Salgado & Rubio-Guerra (2014), Diabetic nephropathy occurs in nearly about one-third of patients that have type 1 Diabetes mellitus and around 25% of patients that have type 2 Diabetes mellitus. Diabetic nephropathy is usually characterized by glomerular hypertrophy, thickness of the basement, tubular and glomerular membranes and accumulation of extracellular matrix in these membranes that causes the tubulointerstitial and glomerular fibrosis and sclerosis. The two main risk factors for diabetic nephropathy are hyperglycemia and arterial hypertension, but the genetic susceptibility in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes is of great importance. Other risk factors included are smoking, dyslipidemia, proteinuria, glomerular hyperfiltration and dietary factors. Zelmanovitz et al. (2009) reported in their study that the prevalence of Diabetic nephropathy varies according to ethnicity as the results indicate that it is higher or more common in African-Americans, Asians and Native-Americans than in

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