Getting to the bottom of diabetes and kidney disease

Diabetic kidney disease may result as much from a failure of certain renal cells to access insulin as it does from runaway blood sugar, a new study shows. The findings in mice suggests that targeting the condition known as insulin resistance might protect the kidneys of people with diabetes, researchers report in the October Cell Metabolism.

Fully half of all kidney disease that leads to dialysis or a transplant occurs in people with diabetes, and most have the common type 2 form that typically shows up in adulthood. Type 2 diabetes has clear links to obesity, lack of exercise and insulin resistance in which cells fail to capture glucose efficiently from the bloodstream after digestion of food. While the precise cause of insulin resistance remains unclear, there’s no question it starves cells, forces the pancreas to work overtime making more insulin and leaves a person with high blood sugar...