A new compound may help prevent of kidney failure read more at here www.spinonews.com/index.php/item/810-a-new-compound-may-help-prevent-of-kidney-failure

A new program may help the development of kidney disease in patients with diabetes.

Diabetes is the leading cause of chronic kidney disease and kidney failure. Approximately one-third of diabetic patients develop kidney disease, or diabetic nephropathy.

Currently, diabetes therapies are often insufficient for preventing the progression of diabetic nephropathy to kidney failure, but a team led by Jesus Egido, MD, PhD and Carmen Gomez-Guerrero, PhD, had discovered a promising new strategy.

A cellular pathway JAK/STAT is chronically activated in diabetes and mediates the damaging effects of high blood sugar on kidney cells. Researchers developed a compound that mimics a protein called suppressor of cytokine signaling 1 (socs1).

The compound helps regulate JAK/STAT, and it can enter cells, inhibit the deleterious effects of high blood sugar on kidney cells, and slow the progression of kidney disease in diabetic mice.

It protects the kidneys in both early and advanced phases of diabetes, and it improves kidney function, and it reduced expression of genes associated with kidney inflammation and scarring. These effects occurred independently of blood glucose levels.