Understanding diabetes mellitus and kidney disease.

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that can cause serious long-term complications when blood sugars are not well controlled. Damage to small microscopic blood vessels in the kidney that filter out waste products from the blood can eventually cause kidney disease. Over time, the kidneys become overworked and start to leak. Because the kidneys are good at compensating for failing blood vessels, kidney disease produces no symptoms until function is almost completely gone. The purpose of this article is to define diabetes mellitus, describe appropriate criteria for diagnosis, and explain the term pre-diabetes. In addition, discussion of the connection between diabetes and kidney disease is presented.