Fish helps prevent kidney trouble

For adults with diabetes, eating fish twice a week may help prevent kidney disease - one of the most serious complications of diabetes.Researchers from UK studied the diets of more than 22,000 middle-aged and older men and women, 517 of whom had diabetes, primarily type 2 disease.It was found that people with diabetes who reported eating fish more than once per week were considerably less likely to have protein in the urine - an early sign of kidney disease. The condition, known medically as macroalbuminuria, can herald worse kidney damage and increase the risk even for heart attacks.A little more than 8 percent of those with diabetes had macroalbuminuria versus less than 1 percent of those without diabetes. And 18 percent of diabetics who did not eat fish regularly (less than once per week) had macroalbuminuria compared with just 4 percent of diabetics who ate fish more than once per week.The findings suggest that eating fish may prevent this early sign of kidney problems, which patients with diabetes are more likely to develop. It is possible that fish oil improves blood lipid profiles and decreases the risk of kidney disease. It could be other components of fish (such as protein or micronutrients) that are protective against diabetic kidney disease. However, it is also possible that people who eat fish frequently have other lifestyle factors, which were not accounted for. The study could not answer whether one kind of fish was better than another. Although the findings suggest that fish intake may be beneficial for albuminuria in people with diabetes, however, further studies are needed to find answers to the above questions.

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