About Kidney Disease

Functions of the Kidney

Your kidneys play an important part in keeping your body healthy. They are about as big as a fist and weigh about five or six ounces. The kidneys are powerful chemical factories that perform the following functions:

• * Remove waste products from the body
• * Balance the body's fluids
• * Synthesize the vitamins which control growth
• * Control the production of red blood cells
• * Release hormones which regulate blood pressure

The functions listed above are carried out by one million functioning units called nephrons. A nephron consists of a filtering unit of tiny blood vessels called a glomerulus attached to a tubule. Fluid then passes along the tubule. In the tubule, chemicals and water are either added to or removed from this filtered fluid according to the body's needs, the final product being the urine we excrete.

Kidney Failure

If both kidneys cannot function, waste products and water will build up in the body. This is called uremia. You will have some serious health problems if you have less than 20 percent of your renal function. If your renal function drops below 10 to 15 percent, you cannot live long without some form of renal replacement therapy, either dialysis or transplantation.

There are two types of Kidney Failure

Acute Renal Failure is a sudden and complete loss of kidney function. Some causes of acute renal failure are, accidents, medicines, surgery, low blood pressure from shock or serious infections. In acute renal failure, the kidneys will start working again in one to four weeks with medical treatment.

Chronic renal failure is a decrease of kidney function in both kidneys over a period of time.

The most common reasons for this are:

1. Kidney diseases
2. Damage to the kidney from diabetes, heart disease, drug abuse or high blood pressure
3. Kidney infections
4. Kidney stones or a blockage present from birth

Treatment of Kidney Disease

Some kidney diseases can be successfully treated and others progress to advanced kidney failure.

Kidney failure is treated with a special diet, medicines, regular dialysis treatments and, possibly, a kidney transplant. Your treatment is based on your special needs. Age, the type of kidney disease, state of health, and your lifestyle are a few of the things that your doctor considers.