World Kidney Day is celebrated in Cayman says nephrologist – kidney doctor Dr. Frits Hendriks of Grand Harbour Medical Clinic, cayman Islands

: Image by KidneyNotes via Flickr

Since 2006 every year on the second Thursday of March the World Kidney Day is celebrated. It is the initiative of the International Society of Kidney Specialists and the International Federation of Kidney Foundations to raise global awareness about chronic kidney disease.

This years theme is diabetes and the kidney. Why did they choose this subject? Probably because you are at higher risk of kidney disease when you have diabetes. Indeed at present the leading cause of end stage kidney disease is type 2 diabetes mellitus which is fifteen times more common than type 1 diabetes.

The future does not look bright at all as the 21st century has the most diabetogenic environment in human history. Over the last 25 years the prevalance of type 2 diabetes has doubled in the USA and there have been 3-5 fold increases in India, China, Korea and Thailand in 2007 there were 246 million diabetics worldwide which will go up to 380 million within 15 years.

Also in the Cayman Islands the major cause of renal failure of patients treated in the local haemodialysis unit is diabetes. But the clinical course of diabetic kidney disease is such that it takes decades to develop. This allows us to identify chronic kidney disease in diabetic type 1 patients at an early stage. Also type 2 diabetics can be screened for early kidney disease by simple urine and blood tests. Every diabetic patient should be tested yearly for protein in the urine and blood work to check kidney function. If so the screenings should be done every 6 months or so. If caught during the early phase of diabetic kidney disease further deterioration can be prevented by tight blood glucose control along with tight blood pressure control . Smokers on the other hand have an accelerated process of kidney disease.