Kidney disease is the fifth leading cause of health-related loss of quality of life in Europe. Ten percent of adults are affected by chronic kidney disease. More than two million people worldwide need dialysis or a kidney transplant.
An unhealthy lifestyle often leads to high blood pressure and diabetes, which damage the kidneys over time. If this is the case, you have chronic kidney disease, which leads to a progressive loss of kidney function. As a result, the state of health and the quality of life of those affected often deteriorate dramatically.
Disease often recognized too late
“It is fatal that many of those affected have no idea of their progressive kidney weakness, because the symptoms usually only appear when the kidney disease is already well advanced,” says Maria Haller, specialist in the department of nephrology and transplant medicine at the Ordensklinikum Linz. To draw attention to these vital organs, World Kidney Day is celebrated worldwide on March 10, 2022.
“In the public consciousness, the kidneys are often overshadowed by the heart and lungs. Through the fate of my grandmother, I got to know the life of people with kidney disease at an early age. It’s simply important to me to show how important healthy kidneys are,” says Maria Haller.
Kidneys are amazing organs. They are our “washing machines” and filter our blood about 400 times a day – around the clock. This produces around 200 liters of filtered urine, which is ultimately reduced to the amount of urine that we all know that we excrete every day (around two liters) by very intelligent processes in the kidneys. As a result, the kidneys remove waste products and toxins from our bodies, keep our bodies chemically balanced, control blood pressure, maintain healthy bones, and ensure adequate production of red blood cells, which carry oxygen around the body.
rethink lifestyle
“In recent decades, the proportion of people in whom an unhealthy lifestyle leads to chronic kidney disease has steadily increased. The consequences are lifelong drug treatment, dialysis – or even transplantation. Everyone should be aware of the importance of the kidneys for maintaining health aware,” says Primar Daniel Cejka, Head of the Department of Nephrology and Transplantation Medicine at the Ordensklinikum Linz.
Source: Nachrichten
