World Kidney Day – 12 Mar. Are your kidneys healthy?

The kidneys are one of the detox organs in our body (the other one being the liver). It is like a massive filter system that removes wastes, controls the body’s fluid balance, and manages electrolyte, potassium balance etc.

Think about a water filtering system that runs 24 x 7, 365 days a year, for 70-90 years, with NO replacement or shutdown period!!!? That is Kidney for you – and hence, let us treat that organ with some respect!

The entire blood in our body passes through the kidney several times in a day where the electrolytes, salt, minerals etc are balanced. Approximately 1.2 litre of blood goes through our kidneys every minute for filtering (that is 25% of the total blood, our heart pumps), During this process, they filter the waste products of muscle metabolism and urea from protein breakdown. These waste products are then excreted out through urine.

The kidney also plays a very important role in controlling blood pressure and also the production of red blood cells through a hormone – Erythropoietin. The kidney also plays an important role in creating an active form of Vitamin – D which is highly important for our bone health.

It goes without saying that maintaining kidney health is important to our overall health and well-being.

12th March is celebrated as “World Kidney Day” and here are a few tips to maintain kidney health.

1. Maintain a healthy body weight

Keep yourself active and fit with a thin waistline. An active lifestyle can reduce the chance of kidney failures directly or indirectly due to other issues such as diabetes, blood pressure etc.

2. Control the Blood Pressure Or Hyper Tension

We all know that high blood pressure or hypertension can damage internal organs. Renal hypertension is a condition where the blood pressure remains elevated in the kidney and may cause chronic inflammation and even kidney failure.

Smoking has a direct adverse impact on the kidneys. It can damage the blood vessels and reduce the blood flow to the kidneys and also increase hypertension.

3. Manage the blood sugar levels

Diabetes or high blood sugar levels can cause havoc with the kidneys. With high blood sugar levels, the finer elements of the filter system in the kidney (Glomerulus) could get damaged and leaky, thereby causing protein & red blood cells to escape into the urine instead of only the waste material. This condition of having protein (Albumin) in urine is called Proteinuria. In such a condition, the urine will be foamy.

Eventually, this can cause kidney damage called Diabetic Nephropathy

4. Drink Plenty of Water

Water is highly important for kidneys to flush out all kinds of waste including sodium. It is especially important for someone who has had kidney stones

5. Avoid too much pain / anti-inflammatory medication

Non-Steroid Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) such as aspirin, ibuprofen etc if consumed routinely can damage the kidney. Reduce the intake of such drugs

6. Protein in your diet

If you have any kind of kidney disease it is not recommended to have a high-protein diet. The by-product of protein metabolism – urea, is excreted by our kidneys. A high amount of protein in the diet can cause overload the kidney causing further damage

In most cases, kidney damage is detected only in the advanced stages and not in the initial period. Quite often, kidney damage by the time is detected would have turned into something more serious and might require dialysis or kidney transplantation!

Take care of your health and fitness levels. Exercise Regularly, watch your weight and reap the benefits.!

Happy World Kidney Day !