Kid­ney dis­ease is a non-com­mu­ni­ca­ble dis­ease (NCD) and cur­rent­ly af­fects around 850 mil­lion peo­ple world­wide. One in ten adults has chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease (CKD). The glob­al bur­den of CKD is in­creas­ing, and is pro­ject­ed to be­come the fifth most com­mon cause of years of life lost glob­al­ly by 2040.

CKD is a ma­jor cause of cat­a­stroph­ic health ex­pen­di­ture. The costs of dial­y­sis and trans­plan­ta­tion con­sume 2 to 3% of the an­nu­al health­care bud­get in high-in­come coun­tries.

Cru­cial­ly, kid­ney dis­ease can be pre­vent­ed and pro­gres­sion to end-stage kid­ney dis­ease can be de­layed with ap­pro­pri­ate ac­cess to ba­sic di­ag­nos­tics and ear­ly treat­ment. This year World Kid­ney Day on March 12 we con­tin­ue to raise aware­ness of the in­creas­ing bur­den of kid­ney dis­eases world­wide and to strive for kid­ney health for every­one, every­where. Specif­i­cal­ly, the 2020 cam­paign high­lights the im­por­tance of pre­ven­tive in­ter­ven­tions to avert the on­set and pro­gres­sion of kid­ney dis­ease.

The term “chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease” means last­ing dam­age to the kid­neys that can get worse over time. If the dam­age is very bad, your kid­neys may stop work­ing. This is called kid­ney fail­ure, or end-stage re­nal dis­ease (ES­RD). If your kid­neys fail, you will need dial­y­sis or a kid­ney trans­plant in or­der to live.

Any­one can get CKD. Some peo­ple are more at risk than oth­ers. Some things that in­crease your risk for CKD in­clude: di­a­betes, high blood pres­sure (hy­per­ten­sion), heart dis­ease, hav­ing a fam­i­ly mem­ber with kid­ney dis­ease, be­ing African-Amer­i­can, His­pan­ic, Na­tive Amer­i­can or Asian and be­ing over 60 years old.

Di­a­betes and high blood pres­sure are the most com­mon caus­es of CKD. If you have di­a­betes or high blood pres­sure, work­ing with your doc­tor to keep your blood sug­ar and blood pres­sure un­der con­trol is the best way to pre­vent kid­ney dis­ease.

CKD usu­al­ly does not have any symp­toms un­til your kid­neys are bad­ly dam­aged. The on­ly way to know how well your kid­neys are work­ing is to get test­ed. Be­ing test­ed for kid­ney dis­ease is sim­ple. Ask your doc­tor about these tests for kid­ney health: eGFR (es­ti­mat­ed glomeru­lar fil­tra­tion rate). The eGFR is a sign of how well your kid­neys are clean­ing your blood.

Your body makes waste all the time. This waste goes in­to your blood. Healthy kid­neys take the waste out of your blood. One type of waste is called cre­a­ti­nine. If you have too much cre­a­ti­nine in your blood, it might be a sign that your kid­neys are hav­ing trou­ble fil­ter­ing your blood. You will have a blood test to find out how much cre­a­ti­nine is in your blood. Your doc­tor will use this in­for­ma­tion to fig­ure out your eGFR. If your eGFR is less than 60 for three months or more, you might have kid­ney dis­ease.

Urine test

This test is done to see if there is blood or pro­tein in your urine . Your kid­neys make your urine. If you have blood or pro­tein in your urine, it may be a sign that your kid­neys are not work­ing well. Your doc­tor may ask you for a sam­ple of your urine in the clin­ic or ask you to col­lect your urine at home and bring it to your ap­point­ment.

Blood pres­sure

This test is done to see how hard your heart is work­ing to pump your blood. High blood pres­sure can cause kid­ney dis­ease, but kid­ney dis­ease can al­so cause high blood pres­sure. Some­times high blood pres­sure is a sign that your kid­neys are not work­ing well. For most peo­ple a nor­mal blood pres­sure is less than 120/80 (120 over 80). Ask your doc­tor what your blood pres­sure should be. Dam­age to your kid­neys is usu­al­ly per­ma­nent. Al­though the dam­age can­not be fixed, you can take steps to keep your kid­neys as healthy as pos­si­ble for as long as pos­si­ble. You may even be able to stop the dam­age from get­ting worse.

If you catch kid­ney dis­ease ear­ly, you may be able to pre­vent kid­ney fail­ure. Di­et is one of the most im­por­tant things when you have CKD. You need to have a kid­ney-friend­ly meal plan when you have chron­ic kid­ney dis­ease (CKD). Watch­ing what you eat and drink will help you stay health­i­er. A kid­ney-friend­ly di­et may al­so help pro­tect your kid­ney from fur­ther dam­age by lim­it­ing cer­tain foods to pre­vent the min­er­als in those foods from build­ing up in your body.

In Kid­ney Kitchen, you can take a deep dive in­to what each nu­tri­ent means for peo­ple with kid­ney dis­ease, and how much of these nu­tri­ents com­mon foods con­tain.

Learn what healthy eat­ing means for peo­ple in every stage of kid­ney dis­ease, in­clud­ing those on dial­y­sis or liv­ing with a kid­ney trans­plant by con­sult­ing your doc­tor and di­etit­ian.

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Dr Visham Bhimull

Fam­i­ly Physi­cian

MBBS (UWI)

Diplo­ma in Fam­i­ly Med­i­cine (UWI)