Long-term diabetes mellitus(DM) causes kidney injury which then develops into diabetic kidney disease(DKD).DKD，which features poor prognosis，complex causes，diverse mechanisms，and long course，threatens the health and quality of life of patients.At the moment，no ideal therapy is available and thus more efforts should be made in this aspect.In recent years，the gut-kidney axis theory(gut microbiota-kidney metabolism) brings out new concepts and strategies for the treatment of DKD.Based on the traditional Chinese medicine theories of “correlation of spleen and kidney，spleen disease affecting kidney，and kidney disease affecting spleen”，the ideas and methods for the treatment of DKD have been summarized.This article discusses the mechanisms of DKD based on gut-kidney axis theory and summarizes related research，which provides new ideas for the clinical treatment of DKD.