What are the Conventional Treatments for Diabetic Nephropathy

Diabetic nephropathy is caused by long term high blood sugar and it will gradually develop into renal failure if left untreated. Symptoms and complications of renal failure usually occur earlier and deteriorate more rapidly than in other cases. The aim of treatments is to control the blood sugar and slow down the progress of renal damages.

The following are the conventional treatments for diabetic nephropathy.

1. Control of blood sugar. The first step to treat diabetic nephropathy is to bring the high blood sugar well under control because it is the root cause of kidney damages. Diabetes can cause the thickening of the glomerular capillary basement membrane and glomerular sclerosis and affect its filtration functions. However most oral hypoglycemic drugs need to be filtered in the kidney and this will increase kidneys’ burdens, therefore these medicines should be avoided in case of severe renal damages.

2. Control of blood pressure. It is very important to control blood pressure because high blood pressure will worsen the illness conditions. For type 1 diabetes, most hypertensions is secondary to diabetic nephropathy and for type 2, hypertension and diabetes often co-exist. This is especially important for type 1 patients and it is very likely that the progress can be delayed for 10 to 20 years if the blood pressure can be controlled well at the early stage of diabetic nephropathy.

3. Protein intake. For diabetic nephropathy patients, they should limit the intake of protein to reduce burdens to the kidneys and slow down the deterioration and the reduced protein can be substituted by carbohydrates. However that does not mean no protein at all because protein is the necessary nutrition that human body needs. Therefore high-quality protein is the best choice because they can provide enough essential amino acid and produce less metabolic wastes. High quality proteins include fish, lean meat, milk, egg, etc.

4. Control blood lipid. Diabetic nephropathy is a relatively serious disease and therefore attention should be paid to control blood lipid which is one influencing factor. Only if the blood lipid is in the normal range (weather it is triglycerides or cholesterol) can patients have a good curative effect.

5. Dialysis. When diabetic nephropathy develops into uremia, the illness condition will be worsened and the kidneys can not discharge metabolic wastes out of the body and there will be obvious increase of serum creatinine, urea nitrogen. In such conditions, dialysis is needed to help clear these wastes and toxins out of the body. In other word, dialysis is needed to sustain life activities.

6. Kidney transplant. Conventionally kidney transplant is the last choice for end stage renal disease patients. With the continuous development of medical science and technology, the survival rate of kidney transplant is on the rise and generally speaking the effect is better to transplant the kidney and pancreas than mere kidney transplant.

At present the application of silymarin to treat diabetic nephropathy has received more attention. Silymarin is an herbal medicine and it has potent functions of antioxidant and anti-inflammation. It has been shown to be effective in alleviating proteinuria.

The above is the general overview of treatments for diabetic nephropathy and early diagnosis and timely treatments can help avoid continuous worsening and irreversible renal damages.