Metabolic Disorders

Diabetes

Diabetes is a group of diseases marked by high levels of blood glucose, also called blood sugar, resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action, or both. Diabetes can lead to serious complications and premature death, but people with diabetes can take steps to control the disease and lower the risk of complications.

Normally, blood glucose levels are tightly controlled by insulin, a hormone produced by the pancreas. Insulin lowers the blood glucose level. When the blood glucose elevates (for example, after eating food), insulin is released from the pancreas to normalize the glucose level. In patients with diabetes, the absence or insufficient production of insulin causes hyperglycemia. Diabetes is a chronic medical condition, meaning that although it can be controlled, it lasts a lifetime. Over time, diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure and nerve damage. These types of damage are the result of damage to small vessels.

Each kidney is made up of more than a million nephrons and each has a tuft of blood vessels attached to it called a glomerulus. The glomerulus filters the blood and forms urine. In diabetic nephropathy’s early stages, the glomerulus thickens and is rendered dysfunctional, allowing more albumin (protein) than normal to pass into the urine. As the disease progresses, more glomeruli are destroyed and protein continues to pass into the urine. Diabetic nephropathy is the most common cause of chronic kidney failure and end stage kidney disease in the U.S. According to the National Institutes of Health, 23.6 million people—7.8 percent of the population—have diabetes.