(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Kidney disease patients develop a resistance to insulin, resulting in pre-diabetes.  A new study has found that the progressive retention of certain compounds that are normally excreted by healthy kidneys might be the cause of pre-diabetes in kidney disease patients. 

 

Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) experience a high risk of cardiovascular disease, actually it’s the number one killer of patients with CKD, and insulin resistance is an important cardiovascular risk factor in these patients.  The compounds that are normally removed from the blood and extracted in urine may play a role in determining why patients with CKD develop insulin resistance.  A compound produced by gut bacteria, p-cresyl sulfate (PCS), is one that is retained in CKD patients because it is poorly removed by most dialysis treatments.

 

Researchers treated mice that had CKD with a prebiotic that reduces blood levels of PCS, insulin resistance and lipid abnormalities were prevented.  These finding suggest that PCS contributes to insulin resistance.  By targeting PCS, the health of patients with CKD could improve.

 

“Because insulin resistance is an important cardiovascular risk factor, novel therapeutic approaches like prebiotics that could decrease PCS more substantially than currently available strategies must be developed, especially since this toxin is not very efficiently removed by dialysis," Christophe Soulage, PhD, at & Université de Lyon, in Villeurbanne, France, was quoted as saying.

 

Source: Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, December 2012

 

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