Urine tests are often part of yearly health checkups. They help doctors find out how well your body is working and can show early signs of kidney problems.
Two important things doctors check are the level of a protein called albumin in the urine and the glomerular filtration rate (GFR), which shows how well the kidneys are cleaning the blood.
When someone has diabetic kidney disease, also known as diabetic nephropathy, albumin starts to leak into the urine. At the same time, the kidneys may filter too much blood at first—a problem called hyperfiltration. Later on, this filtering slows down, and GFR drops.
But as people get older, it’s normal for kidney function to slowly decline. This natural aging effect makes it harder to spot early kidney problems like hyperfiltration in older adults.
To fix this issue, researchers from Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan looked for a better way to measure kidney function in older people. The study was led by Dr. Akihiro Tsuda from the university’s Graduate School of Medicine.
They studied 180 healthy people who were being tested to see if they could donate a kidney. These volunteers were in good health, so they were a good group to use for improving how kidney function is measured. The researchers worked on creating a new formula that could more accurately detect hyperfiltration by looking at both a person’s age and their GFR.
Their results were published in a journal called Hypertension Research. The study pointed out that the usual way of measuring GFR may not be accurate for everyone. The common method adjusts GFR for a person’s body size.
But in people who are overweight, this method can give misleading results. It might hide signs of hyperfiltration and make it harder to catch kidney disease early.
The new formula does not adjust for body size. Instead, it takes into account how kidneys naturally change with age. This makes the results more accurate, especially for older adults.
Hyperfiltration is a red flag for diabetic nephropathy, which can lead to kidney failure if it’s not treated early. Dr. Tsuda said this new method could help doctors find kidney disease sooner and begin treatment faster. Catching the disease early can help slow it down and protect a person’s health.
This new approach to measuring GFR is a big step forward. It could help make routine checkups better at spotting early kidney problems in older people. That means more people might get the care they need before their condition becomes serious.
If you want to learn more about keeping your kidneys healthy, researchers have found that drinking coffee may help reduce the risk of kidney injury. Other studies show that eating nuts could lower the chance of chronic kidney disease and death. There’s also research on foods that may help prevent kidney stones from coming back.
If you care about kidney health, please read studies about pesticide linked to chronic kidney disease, and this drug may prevent kidney failure in people with diabetes.
For more health information, please see recent studies about drug duo that may treat kidney failure, and results showing these vegetables may protect against kidney damage.
The full results of this study are available in the journal Hypertension Research.
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