Comparative Effects of Direct Renin Inhibitor and Angiotensin Receptor Blocker on Albuminuria in Hypertensive Patients with Type 2 Diabetes. A Randomized Controlled Trial.

Background: In patients with diabetes, albuminuria is a risk marker of end-stage renal disease and cardiovascular events. An increased renin-angiotensin system activity has been reported to play an important role in the pathological processes in these conditions. We compared the effect of aliskiren, a direct renin inhibitor (DRI), with that of angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) on albuminuria and urinary excretion of angiotensinogen, a marker of intrarenal renin-angiotensin system activity.

The effects of blood pressure control levels on the renoprotection of type 2 diabetic patients without overt proteinuria.

Background: There is little evidence regarding the target blood pressure level in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus without overt proteinuria.

Methods And Results: We followed 608 Japanese patients with type 2 diabetes without apparent cardiovascular disease and overt proteinuria who underwent cerebral magnetic resonance imaging for a mean of 7.5 years.

Cerebral microvascular disease predicts renal failure in type 2 diabetes.

Abnormalities in small renal vessels may increase the risk of developing impaired renal function, but methods to assess these vessels are extremely limited. We hypothesized that the presence of small vessel disease in the brain, which manifests as silent cerebral infarction (SCI), may predict the progression of kidney disease in patients with type 2 diabetes. We recruited 608 patients with type 2 diabetes without apparent cerebrovascular or cardiovascular disease or overt nephropathy and followed them for a mean of 7.

[Autonomic neuropathy in type-2 diabetes, lessons from Okamoto Diabetes Study].

Clinically important diabetic autonomic neuropathy includes constipation, diarrhea, neurogenic bladder, impotence, dry skin, arterio-venous shunt in the lower extremities, reduced heart rate variability with tachycardia, orthostatic hypotension, and dysautoregulation of the cerebral blood flow. To investigate the prevalence, clinical characteristics and risk factor for diabetic complications, prospective epidemiological study (Okamoto Diabetes Study) has been started since 1991. Autonomic neuropathy was judged from the results of RR interval variation (CV < or = 1.