Diabetes is a common condition and is caused by the failure of the pancreatic gland to produce enough insulin. This hormone regulates how your cells get the sugar they need for energy from the blood. As a result, your blood sugar level can go too high after meals, and too low if you don't eat.

Frequent changes in these levels can, for reasons that are not fully understood, damage your kidneys.

About 40% of people with diabetes have problems with their kidneys. This happens most often when people have had diabetes for longer than ten years. By this stage, they are also likely to have other long-term complications of diabetes, such as heart disease or eye problems. Diabetes is the most common cause of kidney failure in some parts of the world, where it may affect as many as 40% of dialysis patients.

Tests can diagnose kidney failure in people with diabetes.

Kidney failure itself is not hereditary. Diabetes and some of the other diseases that can cause kidney failure, however, do run in the family. Therefore, it is important that you get regular medical check-ups if anyone in your family has diabetes or kidney failure.

If diabetes has started to affect your kidneys, it is likely you may need dialysis or a transplant one day. There are, however, things you can do that might delay this, and keep your kidneys (and the rest of you) as healthy as possible: