Researchers from the University of Washington studied mortality rates over a 10-year period in more than 15,000 adults with and without diabetes.
Kidney disease was present in 42.3% of people with diabetes and in 9.4% of people without diabetes.
The study authors reported that mortality rates were higher for people with diabetes and kidney disease (31.1%) compared with people with diabetes without kidney disease (11.5%), and those with neither diabetes or kidney disease (7.7%).
The research, published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, highlights the impact of kidney problems on outcomes in people with diabetes, and the potential benefits of intensive treatment and prevention strategies in this group of patients.
Lead researcher Dr Maryam Afkarian said that she and her colleagues expected that kidney disease would predict a part, but not a majority, of higher mortality.
She added: “Singling this group of patients out for intensive treatment, or working harder to prevent kidney disease from taking hold, could be a powerful way of reducing deaths among people with diabetes.”
Cathy Moulton, a clinical adviser at Diabetes UK, stressed the importance of early detection of kidney disease in people with diabetes. She commented that patient attendance at simple blood or urine tests that would reveal their kidney problems is key to this; however, the charity’s 2012 report found that as many as three in 10 people with diabetes were missing out on these tests.
She said: “There really is no excuse for this – there is clear guidance saying that kidney function should be tested. Very often the doctor will be taking blood for other purposes, such as checking cholesterol levels, so it is the easiest thing in the world to do.”
