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Every 30 minutes, our kidneys filter all the blood in the body. Over the course of a lifetime of purification, these vital organs can falter. The result is a progressive condition that affects roughly 10% of the world’s population and has become one of the leading causes of death worldwide.
Policies that prevent undocumented immigrants in the United States from receiving a donated organ are not only cruel and unfair, but also fail the cost-effectiveness test.
Diabetes is on the rise globally, mostly in low- and middle-income countries and among minority ethnic groups in wealthier nations. This increase is behind a surge in chronic kidney disease.
Although complete human kidneys grown from scratch are many years away, organoids built from pluripotent stem cells are already helping to model the condition and suggest better treatments.
Increased awareness of chronic kidney disease among the general public is required to facilitate action to improve kidney health. An integrated approach involving mass media campaigns, primary health-care interventions and advocacy is needed to draw attention to chronic kidney disease and shift the focus from kidney failure to achieve a public health perspective on this disease.
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is known to be associated with cognitive impairment, but the mechanisms that underlie this kidney–brain connection are unclear. A recent study provides evidence that CKD is an independent risk factor for cognitive decline due to cerebral small vessel disease.
Chronic kidney disease is a major public health problem that is associated with excessive morbidity, mortality and healthcare costs. However, limited clinician awareness of chronic kidney disease is universally identified as a key barrier to care. A concerted effort is urgently needed to address the knowledge gaps of primary care providers.
Kidney involvement is common in patients with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, and subclinical inflammation and injury may persist for many months, resulting in a progressive decline in kidney function that leads to chronic kidney disease. Continued research is imperative to understand these long-term sequelae and identify interventions to mitigate them.
A new study generated and optimized a polygenic score for chronic kidney disease with reproducible performance across 15 cohorts of different ancestries, and identified potentially clinically relevant thresholds with predicted effects comparable to having a family history of the disease.
Approximately 40 percent of people with type 1 diabetes develop kidney disease, but the risk factors are not well understood. Here, the authors identify DNA methylation signatures associated with diabetic kidney disease, of which 21 biomarkers predict the development of kidney failure.