Conventional medicine fights daily against many chronic diseases - against cardiovascular diseases, joint problems, depression, asthma and back problems. It is striking, however, that chronic renal insufficiency has increased faster in recent years than any other disease - so a study by the Washington University School of Medicine at St. Louis, which was published on 30 November in the JAMA Network Open .
In chronic renal insufficiency (also called chronic renal failure), kidney function steadily declines until finally dialysis or even a kidney transplant is required. The disease is completely free of pain and symptoms in the first stages. However, the disease can easily be detected in good time via blood and urine levels.
Also more and more young people affected
The researchers of the above-mentioned study found that the incidence of kidney disease is steadily increasing in younger adults aged 20 to 54 years, too, at an age when kidney disease has been rather unusual.
" Chronic renal failure seems to be a kind of 'silent epidemic', not least because sufferers usually do not feel the disease until it is well advanced," explains Drs. Ziyad Al-Aly, author of the study and assistant professor of medicine.
More and more deaths from chronic kidney failure
For the study, the researchers evaluated data from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) initiative , which refers not only to the United States, but to many different countries in the world. Therein, more than 350 diseases as well as those affected are sorted by age and gender together with over 80 risk factors.
Thus, between 2002 and 2016, the number of people with chronic renal insufficiency increased faster than those in all other non-infectious diseases, including cardiovascular diseases, cancer, mental and neurological disorders, cirrhosis and chronic lung disease.
While in 2002, just over 52,000 people died of chronic kidney failure in the US , it was over 82,000 in 2016, an increase of 58 percent. Even among the younger people, the number of deaths increased - by more than 26 percent in the period.
The main causes of chronic renal failure
The kidneys are considered to be organs that, once damaged, can not recover and regenerate so well. It therefore makes sense to take preventative action. But even with pre-existing illness lifestyle changes of the disease can at least halt to prevent rapid progression.
Because the main cause of chronic kidney failure is the typical unhealthy lifestyle with high-sugar and high-salt diet, which eventually leads to obesity, hypertension and type 2 diabetes. High blood pressure and type 2 diabetes are among the most common diseases that can lead to kidney damage sooner or later.
In the above study, it was also found that particularly in those US states particularly many kidney diseases can be registered, in which predominated overweight.
But even an unhealthy diet itself can directly affect the kidneys, as the researchers around Professor Ziyad Al-Aly explain. Unhealthy diet and metabolic disorders lead to harmful and toxic substances (you could also say "slags"), which lead to an overload of the kidneys.
Protect kidneys and prevent chronic kidney failure
The necessary measures to protect the kidneys and prevent chronic kidney failure and other kidney diseases are once again the same measures that are required in almost every health problem:
- A healthy nutrient-rich and wholesome diet
- Overweight - with a healthy diet and a lot of exercise
- Prevent diabetes with the measures
- Prevent hypertension
- If possible, avoid medications that can damage the kidneys, including the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs prescribed for joint disorders (eg diclofenac, ibuprofen, ASA, etc.), as well as acid blockers and some antibiotics . Study the package leaflet!