Host: How can you protect your kidneys? Kathy Reily: Kidney protection is important because the small vessels that lead to the kidney and that are in the kidney can become damaged and we won't have any symptoms for that. Protecting your kidneys is best done by controlling your blood pressure, controlling your blood glucose or your blood sugar and also having your urine checked once a year. Your physician should be ordering a urine test it can be a random sample in the office, it can be a 24 hour collection but with that urine sample they will be evaluating your kidney function and that would be one of the best ways to help protect your kidneys.