Kidney diseases multiply risk of heart diseases

CHENNAI: If you thought the kidney and the heart, by virtue of being two different organs of the body, are not related to each other, you could be mistaken. The two are part of the cardiovascular system, which means that if one malfunctions, they other gets affected. Doctors point out that a large percentage of people suffering from chronic kidney diseases suffer from heart diseases.What's more, kidney diseases multiply the risk of heart diseases, they say.
Kidney disease does not show any symptoms till it is at an advanced stage and the kidney has been irreversibly damaged, says consultant urologist at Sri Ramachandra Medical College, Dr Sunil Shroff. "The body is an integrated system and all organs are interdependent on each other. Damage to the kidney could damage the heart," he said.
People having kidney diseases are three times more likely to develop heart attacks than people without kidney diseases, doctors say. "Like cholestrol, high blood pressure and diabetes, kidney disease has also been identified as a risk factor for heart disease" said MIOT institute of nephrology director Dr Rajan Ravichandran.
That explains the theme for this year's kidney day: Protect your kidneys; save your heart.' "There needs to be more awareness on how kidney problems represent the leading cause of cardiac disorders due to calcification," said Dr Ravichandran. Calcification is a process by which calcium gets deposited in the blood vessels in a patient suffering from chronic kidney disease.
For a person suffering from long-standing kidney disease, the arteries could get coated with calcium. "Such a patient's angiogram could be normal, but he could suffer heart attack. This is risky," said Dr Rajan. The kidney has the largest surface area of blood vessels running over it, and if the capillaries and blood vessels are diseased they could affect the cardiovascular system. "Calcification could cause atherosclerosis, which results in calcium deposits on the walls of the arteries. This could be fatal," said Dr V V Bashi, chairman and chief surgeon, Centre for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Care, MIOT Hospitals.
One of the main functions of the kidney is regulation of blood pressure by removing sodium and producing hormones, which maintains blood pressure. When there is a kidney dysfunction, these functions get affected, leading to increased blood pressure and high risk of heart disease.
With changing lifestyles, more young people are now at risk of developing kidney diseases, leading to heart disease. "Even a 10% reduction in salt can lower the blood pressure by 5 mm, which would be beneficial to both the kidney and the heart. People should also avoid popping over-the-counter drugs as these could affect the kidney," said Dr Rajan.
Home detection kits distributed to 1,000 participants revealed that young people were at equal risk of kidney disease. "In the pilot test we conducted, 53 people were tested positive for urine sugar and 13 of them did not know that they had diabetes," said Dr Rajan.