KEEP Healthy   Dr. Spry, our resident doctor, answers your
questions about sugar and its impact on the kidneys, as well as
the kidney-heart connection.  Q: How does sugar intake impact
healthy kidneys?  A: Sugar is not a problem to the kidneys
unless the blood level of sugar gets too high. This commonly
occurs in diabetes, both Type 1 and Type 2. Once the blood sugar
gets higher than 180 milligrams per deciliter, then the kidney
starts to spill sugar into the urine. The higher the blood sugar
the more sugar that comes out in the urine. If your kidneys are
normal, there is usually no problem. If you have diabetes, there
is a problem.  Q: How can diabetes damage the kidneys?  A: The
higher the blood sugar gets, the more that sugar gets attached
to proteins in the body. Indeed, that is how we measure the
damage that can be done by sugar in the body is by measuring a
protein in the body to which the sugar attaches. We measure a
protein know as Hemoglobin A1C (HgbA1C) in the blood and this
gives us an estimate of