Kidney Disease: Causes
Your kidneys may be small, but they perform many vital
functions that help maintain your overall health, including
filtering waste and excess fluids from your blood. Serious
kidney disease may lead to complete kidney failure and the need
for dialysis treatments or a kidney transplant to stay alive.
While effective treatments are available for many kidney
diseases, people are sometimes unaware that kidney disease can
often be prevented. The following are the ten major causes of
kidney disease.
In the United States the two leading causes of kidney
failure, also called end stage kidney disease or ESRD, are
diabetes (also called Type 2, or adult onset diabetes) and high
blood pressure. When these two diseases are controlled by
treatment, the associated kidney disease can often be prevented
or slowed down.
Many effective drugs are available to treat high blood
pressure. In addition, healthy lifestyle changes, such as losing
weight and regular exercise, often help to control, and may even
help to prevent, high blood pressure.
Careful control of blood sugar in diabetics helps to prevent
such complications as kidney disease, coronary heart disease and
stroke. When diabetics have associated high blood pressure,
special drugs called angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE)
inhibitors may help to protect their kidney function.
The third leading cause of end stage kidney disease in the
U.S. is glomerulonephritis, a disease that damages the kidneys'
filtering units, called the glomeruli. In many cases, the cause
of this disease is not known, but some cases may be inherited
and others may be triggered by an infection.
Some of the other diseases that may affect the kidneys
include infections, kidney stones and inherited diseases such as
polycystic kidney disease. The kidneys can also be damaged by
overuse of some over-the-counter pain killers and by taking
illegal drugs such as heroin. Some of these diseases can be
cured. In other cases, treatments can help to slow the disease
and prolong life.
End stage kidney disease occurs when about 90 percent of
kidney function has been lost. People with kidney failure may
experience nausea, vomiting, weakness, fatigue, confusion,
difficulty concentrating and loss of appetite. It can be
diagnosed by blood and urine tests.
Updated: 05/13/04
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See also in this A-Z guide:
- Dialysis
- Kidney Transplant
- Nutrition and Chronic Kidney Disease
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