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Acknowledging World Kidney Day: Critical Role Kidneys Play Maintaining Our Health

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Submitted by Courtney

In raising kidney disease awareness on this special day (World Kidney Day – 11 March 2010), it’s an opportunity to educate those at risk about the importance of early detection, and the critical role the kidneys play in maintaining our overall health.

I’d like to provide the following about Kidney Disease and Diabetes. Let me explain. One of the common causes associated with kidney disease is diabetes. Even when diabetes is controlled that condition can lead to chronic kidney disease and kidney failure

Diabetes is a disease in which your body either does not make enough insulin or cannot use normal amounts of insulin properly. Insulin regulates the amount of sugar in your blood. Diabetes can damage your system due to high levels of blood sugar making the kidneys filter too much blood. Diabetes also may cause damage to the nerves in your body. This can cause difficulty in emptying your bladder. The pressure resulting from your full bladder can back up and injure the kidneys. Also, if urine remains in your bladder for a long time, you can develop an infection from the rapid growth of bacteria in urine that has a high sugar level.

With diabetes, the small blood vessels in the body are injured. When the blood vessels in the kidneys are injured, your kidneys cannot clean your blood properly. Your body will retain more water and salt than it should, which can result in weight gain and ankle swelling and use of the bathroom more at night. Also, waste materials will build up in your blood.

The earliest sign of diabetic kidney disease requires blood and urine tests. This test can detect an increased excretion of protein in the urine, and should be done annually. As a person with diabetes, you should have your blood, urine and blood pressure checked at least annually. This will lead to better control of your disease and early treatment of high blood pressure and kidney disease. Maintaining control of your diabetes can lower your risk of developing severe kidney disease.

Most people with diabetes do not develop chronic kidney disease that is severe enough to advance to kidney failure. Not everyone with diabetes develops kidney disease. The more a person keeps diabetes under control, the lower the chance of getting kidney disease. When kidney disease is diagnosed early, several treatments may keep the disease from getting worse, and when kidney disease is caught later there is a possibility that end-stage kidney disease is close at hand.

The frequencies of both diabetes and kidney failure caused by diabetes have been rising. Some experts have said that diabetes soon might be half the cases of kidney failure.

Signs of Kidney Disease in Patients with Diabetes are:

  • Protein in the urine
  • High blood pressure
  • Ankle and leg swelling
  • Going to the bathroom more often at night
  • High levels of BUN and Creatinine in blood
  • Less need for Insulin or anti-diabetic medications
  • Morning sickness, nausea and vomiting
  • Weakness, paleness and anaemia
  • Itching

You can manage your diabetes better with:

  • home monitoring of your blood glucose levels
  • maintaining an awareness of controlling your blood pressure
  • possibly monitoring your blood pressure at home
  • following your special diet.

Share this info with family and friends especially on March 11.

Source: NKF, ADA

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22 responses to “Acknowledging World Kidney Day: Critical Role Kidneys Play Maintaining Our Health”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    BU is pleased to join the initiative of Bloggers Unite to help create awareness on World Kidney Day tomorrow.

  2. kiki Avatar
    kiki

    David
    the best kidney surgeons in the world are due to multiculturalism
    ask my dad and brother (both top kidney surgeons)

  3. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    @ Courtney

    Nice start. However, with diabetes one should have their blood and urine tested every 3 months, not once a year. The same goes for hypertension. Even pre-diabetics and those with a history of the condition in their families should get the haemoglobin 1c every three months. Just ask Dr. GP.

  4. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    @ KiKi

    And are you not a surgeon too? It usually runs in families. Met some very smart Sri Lankan girls at my son’s engineering school on ‘project day.’ They had no family here, so I asked them to explain their projects to me. Very innovative, very insightful and most could be developed when they returned home. You have some very tall girls. I did not dare ask if they were Singhalese or Tamils, but they were quite dark, black actually.

  5. kiki Avatar
    kiki

    Pat
    No but my elder brother is a robotic surgeon in Boston.
    I should have done medicine (due to my healing powers) but ended up doing IT working in the Banking
    http://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/2004%20archive/211004/f211004_3.htm

  6. kiki Avatar
    kiki

    More Black Donors required
    http://www.thecnj.com/camden/2009/012909/health012909.html

  7. Sapidillo Avatar
    Sapidillo

    @ Courtney and BU/David, thanks for the reminder.

    @Pat
    You are so right about diabetics having their blood and urine check possibly every 3 months and have an A1c done. But for those who may think they are diabetes-free they should also have the tests done at least once a year.

    It is even better if those who are borderline or it runs in the family get a glucose monitoring kit and use either every day or every other day.

    A relative of mine was diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 90. As the saying goes, “wat aint catch yuh aint pass yuh.” When I heard, I bought myself a monitor so that I can check myself frequently.

    Diabetes has become a buzz word all over and I hope that people would take more precautions if they have not already done so starting today.

  8. David Avatar
    David

    Interesting background Kiki.

    Out of curiosity, why do you follow BU?

    On day maybe you can email us a writing with your view about the ethnic tension in Sri Lanka.

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  10. Sapidillo Avatar
    Sapidillo

    In doing some research on Diabetes and the Kidney I came across the link below which I thought was worth sharing

    http://www.kidney.org/atoz/pdf/QualityLife.pdf

  11. Pat Avatar
    Pat

    @Kiki

    Great contributions by your family to the human race. You should ask your Dad, who I suppose has more time, being retired, to write and article on kidney disease and transplantation – problems, rejection, drugs, etc., for our medical corner here on BU. My 80 year old mother was diagnosed last November with type II diabetes.

    By the way, you are in good company. My son is in IT as well.

    By your last name, I gather that you are Christian. I also know a Lankan family here with last name Fernando, who are Christians. I also know one who are Bhuddists last name daSilva, and Werashinghe – who I guess he tries to be everything. lol.

  12. David Avatar
    David

    The following presentation on has been provided with the compliments of Dr. GP.

  13. kiki Avatar
    kiki

    @ David
    You should blame Pied Piper on BFP for pointing me in your direction when she added me to a BU shit list that included the likes of Rok, Negroman etc and accused me of being racist. I was slightly bemused and needed to investigate further. Over the pond people of different races do mix, learn each others cultures, become friends and meet families etc

  14. kiki Avatar
    kiki

    @ Pat
    Yes you can blame the Portuguese who made villages Christians and renamed everyone fernando [meaning is the son of fernandez] so it’s a very common name

  15. kiki Avatar
    kiki

    ✩ JAMES BROWN
    like it is, like it was (the blues, continued)

  16. Courtney Avatar
    Courtney

    After taking a look at Dr. GP’s Obesity graphics, I want to add that Obesity may affect kidneys differently in Whites, Blacks, and that there is a difference between being overweight and being obese.

    – Being overweight means you have an excess amount of body weight, compared to set standards. This excess weight may come from muscle, bone, fat and/or body water.
    – Being obese means you have an excess amount of body fat. Everyone needs a certain amount of body fat for stored energy, heat insulation and other functions.
    – Men with more than 25 percent body fat and women with more than 30 percent body fat are considered obese.
    ~~~
    New findings have been reported that Obese African-Americans may be more vulnerable to the effects of chronic kidney disease than obese whites.

    In the new study done by Dr. Andrew S. Bomback and his colleagues, they looked at 37,107 obese participants (52 percent white, 48 percent black) to investigate whether there might be ethnic differences in how obesity affected kidney function. (The study appears in the March issue of the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.)

    Dr. Bomback and his team reports that while whites were more likely than African Americans to have components of the metabolic syndrome – a group of heart disease risk factors including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood glucose, black individuals were more likely to show signs of failure in kidney hormone function. And while the kidneys of obese whites were more likely than those of obese blacks to show severe impairment in blood filtering capacity, blacks were more likely than whites to be excreting abnormal amounts of protein in their urine, which is a sign of ongoing kidney damage and increased cardiovascular risk.

    Dr. Bomback and his colleagues also found that among people with more advanced kidney disease, blacks were more likely than whites to have anemia and excessive secretion of parathyroid hormone, which is responsible for regulating levels of calcium in the body.

    It has also be reported that kidney damage is more common among non-whites. Non-white individuals at high risk of kidney disease are more likely to show signs of kidney damage than whites from similar risk groups.

    Protein in the urine was found in:
    – 8 percent of whites
    – 11 percent of African Americans
    – 9 percent of Hispanics
    – 10 percent of Asians
    – 15 percent of American Indians/Alaska Natives

    This meant a 20 percent greater risk for Hispanics, a 40 percent greater risk for African-Americans and Asians, and a nearly doubled risk for American Indians and Alaska Natives.

    Source: Renal Business Today

  17. David Avatar
    David

     

    Dr. GP sends another presentation with the following note:

    BU family folk.
    Here is a good ppt on management strategies

    Hope this is helpful

  18. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    Courtney

    I would like to commend you for bringing a higher level of advancing a discussion on a topic posted on BU.

    Please keep going

    Your contribution here is most refreshing.

    I note that these researchers give us statistics but often do not give possibly reasons for the statistics and percieved thrends

    Are black kidneys different than white kidneys? Or is it diet, degrees of stress affecting angiotensin levels. Is hypertension involved?

    Also what were the pathological findings seen among the folk surveyed. Surely there are several different pathological causes and pictures that lead to renal failure.

    Which of these are more common in blacks, and why?

    Have you any information or research findings on any of these questions to advance the discussion?.

  19. David Avatar
    David

    Here is the final presentation from Dr. GP who is concerned at the level of difficulty on this one but promises if time allows to provide some instruction.

  20. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    Actually David this one is very clear. This is my teaching slides on this big tie complication of Diabetes. This is commonly seen in Barbados.

    I have used this in talks even to Pre Med Students.

    I think you misunderstood my note. The difficultry is trying to find something simple on kidney disease to give a ball by ball commentary on the pathology of which Courtney was speaking.

    Im sort of busy now which adds to the difficulty of preparing something myself , but I will peruse my Pathology archives to see what I can find.

  21. David Avatar
    David

    Here is an update (presentation) sent in by Doc GP.

  22. Georgie Porgie Avatar
    Georgie Porgie

    Courtney I have been looking for some simple slides and presentations on kidney diseases – but no luck so far. I am too busy now to make them myself.

    Hi David Why have you gone to ppt?

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