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Obesity Ups Kidney Disease in Diabetes

Posted on: Thursday, 7 December 2006, 00:00 CST

People with type 1 diabetes who are obese have an increased risk of developing diabetic kidney disease, say Seattle researchers.

Researcher Ian de Boer and his colleagues at the University of Washington in Seattle analyzed long-term follow-up data on nearly 1,300 patients with type 1 diabetes who took part in the Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT).

During an average of six years of follow-up, 8.4 percent of patients exhibited microalbuminuria, the first signs of diabetic kidney disease. The risk of this complication was 4.5 percent for patients who received intensive insulin therapy that kept their blood sugar levels as close to normal as possible, and 12.8 percent for those who received conventional insulin treatment.

But the researchers saw that the risk was significantly higher for patients with central obesity. In fact, the team determined that each four-inch increase in a patient's waist circumference increased the risk of kidney disease by 34 percent, even if the patient was on intensive insulin therapy.

Obesity is a growing problem for people with type 1 diabetes, but little was previously known about whether it affects the risk of kidney disease in this group, said de Boer. Although intensive insulin therapy is associated with weight gain, our study showed again that, overall, intensive insulin therapy is protective against kidney disease in type 1 diabetes.

The research was published in the January issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, available online on December 6.

Source: United Press International

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