Chronic Kidney Disease
Your kidneys are the filters of your body. Healthy kidneys regulate the body’s fluid volume, mineral composition and acidity by excreting and reabsorbing water and the minerals that your body needs and eliminating the body’s wastes and poisons. If kidney disease occurs, wastes can build to high levels in your blood and cause you to feel sick. If not treated, you may develop complications like high blood pressure, anemia (low blood count), weak bones, poor nutritional health and nerve damage. Also, kidney disease increases your risk of having heart disease. These problems may happen slowly over a long period of time. A simple determinant of chronic kidney disease (CKD) is evidence of protein in the urine.
According to the National Kidney Foundation, 26 million American adults have CKD and millions of additional people are at increased risk. Chronic kidney disease may be caused by diabetes, high blood pressure and other disorders. Early detection and treatment can often keep chronic kidney disease from getting worse. Progressive CKD ultimately can deteriorate to full kidney failure, for which dialysis or kidney transplantation is necessary for survival. With the incidence of CKD expected to double over the next 20 years, it is critical to find therapies to reduce the already mushrooming threat to human life and the associated costs if this disease is left untreated.
Chronic kidney disease effects more than 36 million Americans
Cardiometabolic Diseases
