In recent years, diabetic nephropathy has become a threat to human health with increasing prevalence rate of diabetes. Diabetic nephropathy is one of the common complications of diabetes, also occupies an important position in nephropathy. The pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy is very complex, as it relates to the molecular level human biological metabolism. Therefore the research on it is more difficult and so far there is no clear pathogenesis. Nowadays, most studies show that the pathogenesis of diabetic nephropathy is related to heredity, abnormal glucose metabolism, abnormal lipid metabolism, microcirculatory disturbance, the role of cytokines, inflammation, kallikrein-kinin system, and so on. According to researches, the treatment of diabetic nephropathy with traditional Chinese medicine has obvious curative effect.