Kidney Diseases on the Rise: Lifestyle to blame
Kidney diseases are the seventh common cause of death in India and its prevalence has increased by nearly 30 percent in last 15 years. This is mainly due to lifestyle diseases such as Diabetes and high blood pressure said, Dr. Sunil Kumar, Senior Consultant and Kidney Transplant Surgeon from Fortis Hospital, Mohali while interacting with media here today.
He said, apart from change of lifestyle certain foods/ habits also contribute to development of kidney diseases. These are believed to be consuming too much salt (slow poison/ pinch by pinch killer), pain medications / self-medication, too much sweet, less of water, high protein diet, meat in excess (red meat), processed foods, alcohol, smoking, lack of sleep, lack of exercise, chronic sitting and holding pee for too long. Dr Sunil Kumar has got his training in kidney transplant at PGI Chandigarh and Oxford, England. He has been doing kidney transplants since 11 years and moved from PGI Chandigarh to Fortis Hospital, Mohali three years back.
He said, people are now a days fond of self-medication and consume them for long time without realizing the harmful effects on kidney. Processed foods involve modification of the food from its original form and are now believed to be harmful for our body. Few examples of processed foods are breakfast cereals (like corn flakes), processed cheese, tinned vegetables, savoury snacks, meat products, such as bacon, sausage, ham, salami and “convenience foods”, such as microwave meals or ready meals.
Prevalence of kidney diseases like stones, infection, chronic kidney disease (CKD), drugs related kidney injury, cancer etc have increased manifolds in the last few decades. Also, the fact is that younger individuals between 30-50 years are now more often reporting to doctors with underlying kidney diseases, he said.
CKD is defined as abnormalities of kidney structure or function, present for more than 3 months, with implications on health. Diabetes, hypertension and Glomerulonephritis are the three primary causes for CKD and affects nearly 10 percent of world population and is associated with approx 735,000 deaths annually. Every year 1 lakh new CKD patients are detected and at any given time nearly 130000 patients are receiving hemodialysis. Unfortunately, CKD usually does not cause any symptom in early stages and hence it is difficult to diagnose it early.
Kidney Diseases on the Rise: Lifestyle to blame
If diagnosed with CKD the patients may require hemodialysis or kidney transplant and patients usually do well and can go home within one week of surgery. He stressed that it was important for all of us to follow healthy lifestyle and food habits, so we can avoid developing any kidney disease.
