Kidney failure at heart of other diseases: Study Have
a kidney problem? Better keep a close eye on your heart too.
Recent data from the National Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)
Registry revealed that a whopping 96% of patients battling
kidney disease had developed cardiovascular problems towards the
end stage of the disease. A bigger concern, however, lay in the fact that not many kidney patients were checked for cardiovascular problems before reaching an advanced stage of kidney failure. For instance, out of 38,193 patients of chronic kidney disease studied in the registry, only 11,599 were checked for cardiovascular diseases. Of these, as much as 66.9% or 7,755 patients had cardiovascular disease. Nephrologists fear that undetected kidney diseases were causing many cardiovascular deaths and brain strokes which are mostly going unexplained. Many are dying of cardiac arrests or strokes just because their kidney disease may not have been detected, said Dr Vidya Acharya, professor, Bombay Institute for Prevention and Control of Kidney Diseases. “Now, we know many metabolic changes occuring in the body due to diabetes, originate from the kidneys and can manifest into a heart or brain problem,” she said. Diabetes goes on to affect blood vessels and also the filtering mechanism of kidneys. Malfunctioning blood vessels affect vessels in the heart and the brain. But often during diagnosis it does not come to light that the malfunctions have originated from the kidneys. The registry underlined that as and when the kidney disease progresses, cardiac problems too start intensifying. According to the figures, little above 3% of patients who were in initial stages of CKD had developed heart problems. But, the percentage went up as 19.7% of those in third stage of kidney disease had cardiac problems, 28.7% of those in fourth stage and 48.5% of those in the end stage of renal failure were suffering from heart ailments. Nephrologist Dr Hemant Mehta of Lilavati hospital said cardio-renal syndrome can be tricky, adding heart problems can be accelerated by bad kidneys and vice versa. Among many causes, some basic ones are that when kidneys fail, toxins start piling up and the functioning of heart automatically decreases, he said. Inadequate dialysis can also lead to heart problems, he said. Heart disease is largely caused by irregular lipid levels, which also lead to kidney problems, said interventional cardiologist Dr Vijay Bang. Experts say heart and kidney treatments should not be compartmentalised. Healthy lifestyle and food habits can prevent both, said Mehta. |