Though it is possible to live a long and healthy life with diabetes, when you have the disease, and you also develop kidney disease, your wellbeing is at a significantly higher risk of premature death. This is according to the authors of a study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN), whose results could mean significant wellness implications, as they point to the need for the prevention and treatment of kidney disease in people with diabetes.
Maryam Afkarian, MD, PhD, of the University of Washington, and her colleagues, wanted to see how your increased likelihood of dying prematurely, when you have diabetes, affects your likelihood of developing kidney disease, and vice versa. Therefore, the team studied that 10-year mortality rates in 15,046 American adults. The implications of such research could be huge in the country, as one in every 10 Americans has diabetes, and a third or more of those with the condition will develop kidney disease. In the study itself, kidney disease was present in 9.4% of the individuals without diabetes, and 42.3% of individuals with type 2 diabetes.
The results were that the 10-year mortality rate was 7.7% among people without diabetes or kidney disease, 11.5% among those with diabetes but without kidney disease, and 31.1% among the individuals who had both diabetes and kidney disease. Afkarian explained, ‘People with type 2 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 associated with type 2 diabetes. To our surprise, we found that even in the medically complex patients with type 2 diabetes, kidney disease is a very powerful predictor of premature death.’
She went on to affirm that the findings of this study have important clinical implications: ‘First, among people with type 2 diabetes, the subgroup with kidney disease carries most of the mortality risk, so targeting intensive risk factor modification on this subgroup is likely to have the highest impact on overall mortality of people with diabetes. Secondly, preventing kidney disease may be a powerful way of reducing mortality in people with diabetes,’ she said.
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