Al Arrayed et al. (2004) estimated the incidence of glomerular diseases in Bahrain by using 498 renal biopsies of patients with proteinuria, hematuria, and mild to moderate renal impairment during a period of 13 years (between January 1990 and December 2002) at a tertiary care hospital.Diabetic nephropathy was seen in 31.9% cases.

Al-Hermi et al. (2005) screened diabetic nephropathy (NDP) for all patients with T1DM of more than 5 years, who were diagnosed between years 1985 to 1995 and followed by pediatricians at Salmaniya Medical Complex, Kingdom of Bahrain. Diabetic nephropathy was diagnosed in 10 patients (31%), two with microalbuminuria (incipient nephropathy), and eight with proteinuria (clinical nephropathy). 

[See also: Saudi Arabia > Alsuwaida et al., 2007].

Al Sarraf et al. (2005) assessed the prevalence of diabetic nephropathy among diabetics in three primary health care centers in Kuwait. to be 22.1%, which was relatively low when compared to data from other countries. In the same patient group, the prevalence of microalbuminuria alone was found to be 11.1%. The factors independently associated with diabetic nephropathy were found to be aged between 50 and 60-years, duration of more than 5-years of diabetes, smoking, hypertension, and elevated serum Hb[A1c], HDL cholesterol, and triglyceride levels.

[Al Sarraf, Al Dhubaib AS, Al Banai DJ, El Shazly SK, Medhat K. Prevalence of diabetic nephropathy and associated factors in type 2 diabetes mellitus in primary health health care in kuwait. Bull Alex Fac Med. 2005; 41(4):583-91.]

Al-Zuabi et al. (2005) prospectively studied all newly diagnosed patients with type II DM in two clinics in Kuwait to look for diabetic retinopathy (DR). Of the 92 diabetic patients studied, seven were found to have DR (five of the females; overall average age-51 years). Al-Zuabi et al. (2005) considered the rate of DR (7.6%) to be low.

[See also: Saudi Arabia > Alsuwaida et al., 2007].

[See: Saudi Arabia > Alsuwaida et al., 2007].

Rashed and Aboud (2004) reviewed the cases of 432 patients who received renal transplants (RT) between 1986 and 2002, 238 were Qatari nationals and 194, expatriates of mixed nationalities. Rashed and Aboud (2004) realized that diabetic nephropathy was the most common cause of end-stage renal disease among Qataris.

[See also: Saudi Arabia > Alsuwaida et al., 2007].

Alsuwaida et al. (2007) found that the most common cause of end-stage renal failure in the Arabian Gulf Countries was diabetic nephropathy, closely followed by chronic glomerulonephritis. A total of 563 patients from 18 centers were included in the survey. These patients were undergoing chronic dialysis [hemodialysis (HD) or peritoneal dialysis (PD)] and their ages were 18 years or older. 

Shtir et al. (2016) sought to identify candidate genes with rare SNPs that confer a protective effect against Diabetic Retinopathy (DR).  To do so, 43 diabetics with no DR, 10-years after their diabetes diagnosis were enrolled as cases while the more common phenotype of diabetics with DR were recruited as controls.  Following whole exome sequencing, the combined multivariate and collapsing method helped identify three genes that reached genome-wide significance.  These were NME3, FASTK and LOC728699 (p=1.55x10-10, 3.21x10-8 and 6.23x10-10 respectively).  The alternate alleles in each of these genes was found to be more frequent in cases than controls, thereby suggesting that these SNPs provide a protective effect against DR in diabetes patients (Risk Ratio= 4.61, 3.18 and 3.26 respectively). 

[See: Saudi Arabia > Alsuwaida et al., 2007].