Diabetes is known to increase a person’s risk of kidney disease. Now, a new study from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that the converse also is true: Kidney dysfunction increases the risk of diabetes.
Further, the researchers deduced that a likely culprit of the two-way relationship between kidney disease and diabetes is urea. The nitrogen-containing waste product in blood comes from the breakdown of protein in foods. Kidneys normally remove urea from the blood, but it can build up when kidney function slows down.
