India,Oct 29: Diabetes management extends beyond monitoring blood sugar, taking medication and making lifestyle changes. Since diabetes can affect kidney function even before noticeable symptoms appear, assessing kidney health is an important part of diabetes care. However, awareness of tests that help identify early signs of kidney damage remains an important gap.
With its latest awareness initiative, Bayer’s ‘Diabetes Grab-A-Thon’ highlights the importance of Urine Albumin-to-Creatinine Ratio testing, an important tool for assessing kidney health in people living with diabetes.
UACR is a urine test that measures the ratio of albumin to creatinine in urine. Elevated levels of albumin can indicate kidney damage and serve as an early marker of chronic kidney disease. UACR testing can help healthcare professionals identify early signs of kidney damage and determine appropriate next steps in patient care.
The initiative seeks to address the awareness gap through an engaging, game-show-inspired format. Participants are presented with gift boxes representing familiar diabetes-management habits and health tests. As they select the boxes they relate to, the box marked ‘UACR’ remains untouched, highlighting how an important aspect of kidney health assessment can be overlooked even when other aspects of diabetes management are understood.
Speaking about the campaign, Shweta Rai, Managing Director – India and Country Division Head – South Asia, Bayer’s Pharmaceuticals Division, said:
“Important health conversations don’t always have to begin with complex medical information. With the Diabetes Grab-A-Thon, we have used a familiar, engaging format to draw attention to a health test that may otherwise be overlooked. Our aim is to make UACR more widely understood and encourage people living with diabetes to speak with their doctors about their kidney health.”
Through a larger movement built around UACR as the test that completes the diabetes puzzle, Bayer hopes to encourage people living with diabetes to look beyond blood sugar monitoring and speak with their healthcare professionals about appropriate kidney health assessments, including UACR testing.
