To know about your kidney is the most important factor. Kidneys are a pair of organs located in the back of abdomen. 99% of the human beings having 2 kidneys. In a rare case few is having only one kidney, for eg. Late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi who was born with just one kidney by birth. Kidney is about 4 to 5 inches long, about the size of a fist.
Anatomy of kidneys and
awareness:
All
the blood in our bodies passes through the kidneys several times a day filter blood;
they create urine, which collects in the kidneys pelvis. In other words blood
vessels arising from the ureter, which is a branch from the heart, connect to
the kidney and the renal vein takes de-oxygenated blood from the kidneys back
to heart and the ureter collects filtered urine down to the bladder for
ejecting out of the body. Inside the kidney, the nephrons act like a filter and
there are 10 lakh nephrons in each kidney. Nephron is a functional unit that
expels waste in to the urine while blood and proteins remain in the filter.
Causes
of Acute Renal Failure:
When
someone has kidney failure or problem requiring dialysis, whether it is
permanent is decided by the cause of injury to the kidney. Two types of injury
to the kidney occur, one which is acute and usually temporary in nature, and
the second is chronic and permanent.
There
are 3 types of Injury:
Prerenal-disease
is not in the kidney but drop in blood pressure with diarrhea and vomiting and
consequently patient is dehydrated with less blood flowing in to the kidney.
Intrarenal-inside
the kidney is difficult to treat. There are certain drugs and toxins, which
should not be given to those with weak kidneys and must monitor medicines.
Forced
Renal-if the path of urine from a normal kidney to the bladder has an
obstruction due to stone or prostate enlargement. Prerenal and forced renal are
easy to treat and are reversible.
Chronic
Kidney Disease:
The
highest percentage of diabetic and high blood pressure, which can be treated.
Dr. Rushi Deshpande advocated that once a year one should checked for diabetes
and blood pressure. People with heart disease should check for protein in
urine, which is the first sign of injury to the kidney. Extent of injury is
variable within the people. Therefore, doctors across the world divided the
same into stages (I-just started with injury and v-already on dialysis),
stratified them to understand better and tell the patient what to expect and
treat them accordingly.
Symptom and Signs
Symptoms
of kidney failure are so silent that you are very unlikely to pick them up at
an early stage. Symptoms viz. feeling fatigued; trouble in concentration; poor
appetite; trouble in sleeping, muscle cramps at night; swollen feet, dry thick
skin and need to urinate more often. So look for symptoms actively. If you wait
for the disease to give trouble and show symptoms, we will be catching stage IV
and V and paying penalty for the same. Hence, it is important to detect early.
How can we prevent it?
We
cannot prevent it totally but practice secondary prevention i.e. early
detection and management of modifiable risk factors thereby arrest the disease
and don't allow galloping rapidly. Thus, control sugar and pressure, do not
smoke, and do not to get overweight and take salt restricted diet.
General Symptoms
Very
few patients have swelling of face, legs, and body at early stages (II and
III).This can't be seen with chronic renal failure (nephritic syndrome).
·
High Blood Pressure
Silent disease and killer. Check pressure and if it
is high, treat it. Kidney disease is silent and easily incarnate.
·
Tests to assess Kidney Function:
Serum Creatinine (a blood measurement) by no means
is a sensitive test for picking up the disease early.
·
Kidneys And Heart Share Relation:
Every heart patient can have an early kidney problem
and vice versa, so it is important to look for both.
·
Causes of Kidney Injury:
Diabetes, Pressure, Obesity, Painkillers, Heavy
metals, Environmental risk factors, Infections etc. It is not necessarily due
to one factor alone but can be more than one. How it happens is not known at
molecular level. At a particular stage, it becomes irreversible.
·
Protect Your Kidney To Save Your Heart:
Kidney is a permanent organ. The same is not true
for brain and heart and even at the age of 70 years you will find new blood and
new skin but not new cells in kidney and brain. These are permanent organs and
injury is not reversible.
How to Maintain a Healthy
Kidney?
·
Smoke cessation is important.
·
Smoking damages blood vessels and kidneys have
a large amount of blood vessels in them.
·
Exercise.
·
Diet restriction of salt (potassium)i.e.
consumption of salt, our body conserves it leading to hypertension and it has
to be expelled out of kidneys, so salt restriction will be of paramount
importance blood pressure. How gold is for women, salt is for body.
·
High Protein Intake: Animal proteins are
notorious when it comes to the kidney; by being vegetarian, it is easy to
control protein in the diet.
·
Lipid Control: Life style modification and
certain drugs are needed to control cholesterol properly to prevent kidney
injury.
·
Control of Obesity: Control blood sugar, blood
pressure and avoid nephrotoxic drugs. Be careful of antibiotics consumed
regularly, painkillers like paracetamol, Brufen etc. Those are developed into
habit because of stressful life. Hence, pick up disease early and intervene.
Thanks
to Dr.K S Murthy & Dr.Rushi Deshpande for the detailed information for the
public awareness.