What happens if you soak your kidneys in sugar water? Be careful of diabetic nephropathy knocking on your door!

Diabetic nephropathy - soaking the “kidneys” in “sugar water”?

Diabetes and kidney disease are two words that seem to have nothing in common. What kind of disease is diabetic nephropathy?

To understand this concept, we must first understand what role the kidneys play in our human body.

Blood flows in our body, bringing nutrients and oxygen to various tissues and organs, and also taking away waste produced by organ work. When blood flows through the kidneys, the kidneys act like a filter, trapping large proteins and blood cells in the net, filtering out small molecules of sugar, urea, electrolytes and water, which form the filtrate. The kidneys are filtering all the time, and are simply blood purifiers. Such filtrate can produce 180 liters a day, but because some amino acids, glucose and electrolytes in this filtrate can still be used by the body, the kidneys will also reabsorb some substances that are still useful to the human body before excreting the filtrate, among which glucose as one of the energy supply sources will be completely absorbed, so normal people's urine does not contain sugar. The remaining water and other substances that have not been reabsorbed become urine and are excreted from the body.

As the name suggests, diabetes is called diabetes when there is sugar in the urine. What is going on? The fact is that when the sugar content in the blood is too high, when such blood enters the kidneys, there is too much sugar and the kidneys cannot absorb it all, so part of the sugar is excreted from the body with urine and cannot be detected by us.

Diabetes is a group of diseases characterized by chronic high blood sugar caused by multiple causes. Imagine that your body has been soaked in high-sweet sugar water (such as the candied black plums we often see on the market). Any tissue and organ that can come into contact with the blood will be affected by high sugar and undergo a series of changes, not only affecting the morphology, but most importantly, the function. The kidneys, as blood filters, are the first to be affected. Imagine that the filter filters the sugar water every day. Over time, there will always be sugar crystals left on the net, affecting the function of the filter. Diabetic nephropathy is caused by the micro-vessels in the kidneys being affected by high blood sugar, which causes lesions and leads to a gradual decline in the kidney's filtration function, resulting in a series of clinical manifestations.

The first thing that happens is that a substance that shouldn't be in the urine appears - protein. Urine containing protein is called proteinuria. As mentioned before, protein as a large molecule will not pass through the filter. However, protein appears in the urine. Can this be used to suspect that there is something wrong with our filter? If blood sugar is not well controlled and the filter is severely damaged, proteinuria will continue to appear. The amount of protein in the urine increases, which also reflects that the holes in our filter are getting bigger and bigger. When the filter is broken to a certain extent, it can no longer be used, and the kidneys will fail, just like candied black plums. The kidneys can no longer play a filtering role.

What should I do if I have diabetic nephropathy? In fact, diabetic nephropathy can be completely avoided. As long as blood sugar is well controlled, you can live as well as normal people. In clinical practice, we often call the methods of blood sugar control the five carriages. Only when these five carriages move forward in unison can we compete with high blood sugar.

The first carriage is the degree to which the patient attaches importance to the disease. Only true inner awakening can bring about a high degree of self-discipline. Only when one understands the importance of blood sugar control and understands the many consequences of poor blood sugar control can one truly achieve self-management. This carriage is called the leading carriage and is the most important basis for controlling the occurrence of the disease.

The second carriage is diet coordination, which involves reasonably controlling the total calorie intake and personalizing the proportion of carbohydrates, proteins, and lipids. Regular eating is also not to be ignored.

The third carriage is exercise, especially for obese patients, as exercise can consume sugar.

The fourth carriage is to do a good job of monitoring. Even if we control our mouths and move our legs, if we do not persist in monitoring, we will not know whether we are doing well or enough. We can adjust our plans according to the monitoring results.

The last carriage is to use medication.

What should we do if the kidneys have already become diseased?

Kidney disease indicates that the above five carriages are not strong enough to control blood sugar. We should stick to the five carriages treatment plan. Among them, diet needs to be adjusted. Because urine protein has begun to appear, we need to control protein intake. Because we eat less protein, we need to take in high-quality protein such as eggs, milk, shrimp, etc. At the same time, we also need to control blood pressure and blood lipids.

If the kidneys are soaked in sugar water, they will gradually lose their function, and we will end up hurting ourselves. Friends who have diabetic kidneys must control these "five carriages"!

References

Expert consensus group on multidisciplinary diagnosis, treatment and management of diabetic nephropathy. Expert consensus on multidisciplinary diagnosis, treatment and management of diabetic nephropathy[J]. Chinese Journal of Clinicians. 2020,48(05): 522-527.