Assessment of sweat gland activity to determine diabetic kidney disease

Abstract

Diabetes is a major cause of concern around the world since it is a metabolic syndrome rather than a disease, and its complications include heart disease, obesity, diabetic neuropathy, diabetic kidney disease, etc., all of which raise healthcare utilization and economic burden. Therefore the need of the hour is a non-invasive screening procedure to identify the diabetic-related complications so as to reduce the Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs) and the mortality rate. Especially, Diabetic Kidney Disease (DKD) accounts for more than 60% of total nephropathy cases. Since the Sweat Gland (SG) exhibits structural and functional similarity with the kidney, attempted here is to explore SG through sweat urea and Electrodermal Activity (EDA). newlineThis study is performed in three stages: at first, a test related to sweat urea alone is conducted, the next test is related to acquiring EDA signals to determine SG activity is explored, and finally, these two tests are performed simultaneously on a group of volunteers. newlineAt first, an electro - optical device is developed to quantify sweat urea. For this purpose around 90 volunteers were chosen and grouped into CONTROLs, subjects with diabetes less than 5 years and subjects with diabetes more than 5 years (belonging to the age group: 20-65 years). The result of this part of the study demonstrates the elevation of sweat urea among diabetes even before the serum urea shows off, establishing the possibility of exploring urea in assessing diabetes and DKD. newline