They said Type-2 diabetes is reaching epidemic proportions and the loss of kidney function associated with diabetes has become the single most common cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD), or death of the kidney, in many countries, including the United States and the Philippines.
The experts said this has resulted in the increasing cost of treating diabetes and loss in productivity. In the US alone, costs related to the treatment of the disease, including productivity loss, total about $98 billion annually.
Four years ago, almost 400,000 people in the US suffered from ESRD with resulting healthcare costs amounting to almost $17 billion. The cost is expected to surpass $28 billion by 2010.
According to the World Health Organization, of the 146 million patients worldwide with Type-2 diabetes, approximately 60 million have high blood pressure or hypertension, which is two to three times more common in these patients than in non-diabetics.
Hypertension occurs when the blood exerts too much force on the artery walls. It makes the heart and blood vessel system work harder and can eventually damage the blood vessels throughout the body, or even the heart itself.
Individually, diabetes and high blood pressure increase the risk of kidney disease. However, the risks of having a kidney disease rise dramatically when the person has diabetes and high blood pressure.
Healthy kidneys are essential for a healthy body. Kidneys maintain salt and water imbalance and help filter our harmful wastes from the blood to form urine. Sometimes kidneys can be damaged or diseased, preventing them from functioning properly.
Diabetes and hypertension are the two most common causes of kidney disease or damage. As kidney disease progresses, it may lead to permanent kidney failure or ESRD, a serious condition in which the patient requires dialysis or kidney transplantation in order to live.
Dialysis is a procedure that cleans and filters the blood, removes harmful wastes, extra salts and fluids from the body. Kidney transplantation is a surgical procedure in which a healthy kidney is removed from one individual and implanted into another individual. Both procedures are costly and may disrupt the patient’s normal productive life. What ‘s worse is that prognosis for patients with ERSD is bleak. About 30 percent of those undergoing dialysis and 15 percent of those receiving their first kidney transplant die within two years.
RENAAL, which appeared recently in the New England Journal of Medicine, was conducted among patients with Type-2 diabetes and kidney disease. Investigators reported that losartan significantly reduced the risk of progression to ESRD requiring dialysis or kidney transplantation by 28 percent.
RENAAL is the first and only study to report that a drug reduces ESRD in this patient population. Moreover, losartan provided a cardio-protective benefit in the study by reducing the risk of hospitalization for heart failure.
New analysis from RENAAL also show that treatment with losartan saves cost. According to a recent study, the United States health care system alone could save more than $4billion over four years by treating patients with Type-2 diabetes and kidney disease with losartan.