Tens of millions of Americans are at high risk of kidney failure but are not given routine tests that could slow or even stop the progression of the disease, according to an expert task force formed by the National Kidney Foundation (NKF).
The panel concluded that as many as 20 million people with common ailments including diabetes, high blood pressure, or with a family history of kidney disease are at risk of developing kidney disease themselves.
Some 20 million more already have some kidney damage that may go unnoticed because it often causes no obvious symptoms.
This is a shift in emphasis from kidney failure to prevention. Many early signs of kidney disease go unnoticed by physicians partly because experts have never agreed on a uniform standard for classifying the stages of disease.
NKF's guidelines are largely geared toward bringing kidney disease prevention into the popular mainstream, just as heart disease was in the 1980s. Millions of Americans now know their cholesterol levels and modify their diets or take medications to lower their chance of developing artery trouble or suffering a heart attack.
The panel is now recommending that high-risk individuals -- including
to get three key tests when visiting their doctor:
Studies performed in recent years have linked elevated levels in each test to an increased risk of kidney disease and possible failure.
The recommendations give doctors an 'action plan' designed to guide intervention depending on test results and the stage of kidney disease. The plan includes medication and lifestyle changes for up to 6 million Americans whose lab tests may reveal early but symptom-free kidney damage.
Approximately 300,000 Americans are currently on dialysis, a treatment that requires patients with kidney failure to hook into a blood filtering machine several times a week to stay alive. More than 13,300 other patients underwent kidney transplants in 2000, and 51,000 more currently sit on transplant waiting lists, according to the United Network for Organ Sharing.
Kidney failure kills up to 60,000 Americans each year, and those that survive endure severe lifestyle restrictions with treatment that costs the health system some $15 billion per year. Much of the cost is born directly by taxpayers, since the federal Medicare program finances all end-stage, or advanced, renal disease care in the US.
Obesity and smoking are both believed to be major causes of the diseases leading to kidney failure.
American Journal of Kidney Diseases February 2002;39:supplement
It is great to see a more proactive approach to screening for this disease, rather than waiting for a person's kidney's to fail and then put them on the Medicare bandwagon which sucks another $15 billion dollars a year from the US.
Wouldn't it make more sense to actually have people avoid things that cause kidney disease in the first place?
Earlier this year, I reported that patients who were regular users -- those who took these painkillers at least twice a week for 2 months -- were two to three times more likely to have the beginning stages of chronic kidney failure, compared with individuals who did not use these painkillers on a regular basis.
So, avoiding Tylenol and aspirin will be very important to preventing kidney disease. It is far better to treat the reason why one is taking the medication. If it is a structural problem, the energy psychology tool Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) seems to work quite nicely to resolve pain without any drugs.
If one has recurrent headaches, it is my experience that the eating plan is enormously useful for clearing up even migraine headaches.
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