MAIN Health Diseases Kidney Disease

The kidneys are two fist-sized filters in your lower back. Blood flows through these organic cleaning machines to remove excess water and other waste products. The waste is passed on to your bladder as urine. Every day, your kidneys clean about 200 quarts of blood to keep your body healthy.

How kidneys work

Your kidneys contain microscopic filtering units called nephrons. The nephron is a combination of a very small blood vessel, a glomerulus, and a urine collecting tube called a tubule. Blood enters the glomerulus and a complicated chemical exchange takes place between the blood vessel and the tubule.

Impurities, excess nutrients and water are drawn out of the blood in the tubule and passed to the urinary system and bladder. The filtered blood is passed back to the glomerulus and back to the rest of your body. Each kidney has about a million nephrons.

As blood passes through the kidneys, chemicals like sodium, phosphorus, and potassium are measured. If there is too much, the kidneys will remove the excess and release the rest back to the blood to return to the body. Your kidneys were designed to test for the correct level of these chemicals that your body needs to function. Your brain also releases hormones that help the kidneys to know what the rest of your body needs. If your kidneys are not filtering your blood properly, it can be harmful for you.

When the blood passes through the kidneys, three hormones are added to the mix.

• Eerythropoietin (eh-RITH-ro-POY-eh-tin), or EPO, stimulates the bone marrow to make red blood cells.
• Renin (REE-nin) controls the amount of water in your blood to regulate blood pressure.
• Calcitrol (kal-suh-TRY-ul) helps your body use calcium.

If your kidneys do not work the way they were designed to, the waste and excess water is not removed from your blood, the balance of chemicals, called electrolytes, in your blood can become harmful and the hormones are not added.

Most kidney diseases are the result of your brain not sending correct hormones to the kidneys or your kidneys losing the ability to respond. Chronic kidney disease (CKD) occurs, over time, when the kidneys are not functioning the way they were designed to despite treatments and changes in diet.

This can cause may problems even in the earliest stages. Complete renal failure can lead to death. Early detection and treatment can help prevent the progression of kidney disease to kidney failure in many cases.

Who gets kidney disease?

Many things can cause kidney disease. However, studies have shown that you are probably most at risk if you have diabetes, high blood pressure, or if a close member of your family also suffers from kidney disease.

Hypertension can cause chronic kidney disease by making the kidneys work too hard to remove the excess water from your blood. Oddly enough, kidney malfunctions may in turn cause high blood pressure that adds even more strain to weakened kidneys.

Types of kidney disease

There are many types of kidney disease which include:

Alport's syndrome
Chronic kidney disease
Glomerular diseases
Goodpasture syndrome
IgA nephropathy (Berger's disease)
Interstitial nephritis
Lupus nephritis
Medullary sponge kidney
Nephrotic syndrome in adults
Renal fusion (horseshoe kidney)
Renovascular conditions
Tubular and cystic kidney disorders

More about kidney disease around the Web:

Dealing with kidney disease creates stress for families coping with the disease as well as the person experiencing the symptoms. Dietary changes, medical tests and treatments can mean difficult adjustments. These sites provide online support, facts & information, and the progress shown in recent studies opening new avenues for battling kidney disease ...

Your Kidneys and How They Work - National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Information Clearinghouse of the US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health provides an excellent source of information on how kidneys work that is much easier to read than the name of the organization!

Medline Plus - Kidney Disease - US government sponsored site with good information on the various types of kidney disease, the latest news, treatments, resources for coping, access to clinical trials and lots of other great resources.

Atlas of Kidney Diseases - This is an online text with an easy-to-use search. Chapters download in either PowerPoint or PDF format, with related gallery of high resolution images viewable online.

also see features -> Why Summer Is Kidney Stone Season

This information is intended as reference and not as medical advice.
All treatment decisions should be made by medical professionals.