Smoking is particularly bad for the kidneys in diabetics
Christiane Fux studied journalism and psychology in Hamburg. The experienced medical editor has been writing magazine articles, news and factual texts on all conceivable health topics since 2001. In addition to her work for, Christiane Fux is also active in prose. Her first crime novel was published in 2012, and she also writes, designs and publishes her own crime plays.
More posts by Christiane Fux All content is checked by medical journalists.People with diabetes often develop kidney failure. The reason for this is that the excessive blood sugar levels also damage the small blood vessels in the kidneys, which are important for organ function. This happens particularly often when diabetic patients also smoke.
The vascular damage then happens not only indirectly - namely by smoking, for example, increases the blood pressure and thus damages the blood vessels in addition to the excess sugar. The consumption of cigarettes also damages the kidneys directly through the toxins it contains.
Researchers from the Diabetes Research Center, University of Leicester have investigated how the combination of diabetes and smoking affects the likelihood of kidney damage - regardless of known risk factors for diabetes-related kidney damage such as male gender and the duration of the diabetes illness. For this purpose, the results of 13 studies with more than 20,000 type 2 diabetics were evaluated.
23 percent higher risk of kidney failure
The researchers found that smoking - according to the duration of the diabetes - was right in second place among the factors that promote kidney damage in diabetics. In smoking diabetics, the risk of nephropathy increases by 23 percent.
The researchers recommend that young diabetics in particular should refrain from smoking as much as possible. Since most of them will live with the disease for many years to come, additional risk factors for secondary diseases such as kidney failure are particularly significant.
Albumin in the urine indicates kidney damage
The researchers used the amount of albumin in the urine of the participants as a yardstick for the functional efficiency of the kidneys. The body's own protein fulfills an important function in the blood. If larger amounts of it appear in the urine, this indicates kidney damage.
Eight million diabetics in Germany
According to the German Diabetes Health Report 2018, around eight million people in Germany suffer from diabetes, 90 percent of them from type 2 diabetes. 20 to 40 percent of them develop kidney weakness (renal insufficiency) in the course of the disease.
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