Fight kidney disease with weight, not water: prof

Drinking lots of water will not protect your kidneys from disease, but avoiding being overweight might.

That is the message from British kidney researcher and specialist Prof Peter Mathieson, who said in Dunedin yesterday there was a need for increased awareness of kidney disease.

That would include an end to people being squeamish about urine.

People were insufficiently receptive to the messages about keeping their kidneys healthy, but it was the job of health professionals to make information about kidney disease more accessible.

Kidney disease was "not a very sexy subject", but it was a significant health burden.

The best way to prevent kidney disease was to control diabetes and obesity.

Not gaining weight was the most important thing people could do to keep their kidneys healthy, Prof Mathieson said.

Having your blood pressure checked and controlled if necessary, moderating salt and alcohol intake, and "good levels" of physical exercise also played a part.

There was no evidence drinking lots of water protected kidneys, and the vogue for everyone to drink bottled water had no health evidence to support it, he said.

The body's thirst mechanism was extremely powerful and "if you need more water you will feel thirsty. If you don't feel thirsty, you don't need it".

Tap water was perfectly adequate, he said.

However, in some very hot parts of the world, such as Saudi Arabia, there was a need to keep up fluid intake to prevent the urine becoming too concentrated, because this could lead to kidney stones.

Prof Mathieson would ban high energy drinks if he could.

While they did not have a direct damaging effect on kidneys, their high calories led to associated health risks.

There were "very powerful" statistics suggesting the current generation of children would have a lower life expectancy than their parents.

Parents, who generally wanted their children to have a "better deal", should start disease prevention early.

This included encouraging physical activity and avoiding junk foods and high calorie drinks.

In the United Kingdom, there had been an emphasis on increasing physical exercise in the young, but this was not addressing the major problem of calorie intake, he said.

Prof Mathieson, who was the foundation professor of renal medicine at Bristol University where he is now the dean of medicine and dentistry, has been studying protein in urine, a sign of kidney disease; and ways to prevent kidney disease.

Often kidney disease was diagnosed late because it did not produce early symptoms.

A key to early detection was screening the urine for protein using sensitive tests, and the United Kingdom Government was being encouraged to introduce that.

In the long term, it was hoped research would lead to the ability to predict, by genetics or other means, who was at risk; and aim preventive strategies at those people.

People needed to realise paying for treating complications from obesity and diabetes rather than concentrating on prevention was "already overwhelming most of the developed world economies" where some form of health rationing was inevitable.

There were not enough kidney transplants available and the cost of dialysis meant clinicians would be forced to choose which patients would get a good quality of life on dialysis because they were dealing with a "finite resource".

Why I provide free medical services to less privileged –Enugu medical doctor

All the years Dr Samuel Ngwu, who hails from Ogui Nike in Enugu North Local Government Area of Enugu State sojourned in Dallas Texas, United States of America, he always had home in mind. He had practiced as a medical consultant in South Western Medical Centre, Dallas, USA. He is also a fellow of American College of Physicians; President and founder of a non-governmental organization, African Mission of Hope. He speaks on the activities of African Mission of Hope in this interview with Daily Sun.

It is a non-governmental organisation with the primary goal of alleviating African health care burden with the poor and the sick.
We have over the years brought doctors yearly with all kinds of specialty, doing free medical services to Nigerians in this Eastern part of the country. We go from villages to villages attending to health care needs of Nigerians and Africans.

We provide specialties, consultations, medications and drugs. We provide durable medical equipment like wheel chairs, crutches, beddings, to relive sores in people that have bed sores and diabetic equipment where they can check their sugars.
Primary health care awareness is also one of our focuses because we have found out over the years that there is many of what western people call avoidable deaths, which means that what shouldn’t kill somebody is killing somebody in Africa, especially in Nigeria. And once people are aware, they can do the right thing to prolong their longevity.

We target the masses. We are open to all Nigerians. We have people that bring all kinds of records. X-rays, reports for help with consultations. We also have ability to send people overseas for services that are not available here in Nigeria. We have taken a 20-year-old lady to America for brain tumour surgery. We have taken a three-year- old Nigerian to America with a hole in the heart for open heart surgery.
We have taken people with renal stones, which is kidney stones, that is too big for anything to be done in this country, overseas for urological interventions.

I own a medical clinic in the United States of America, which is quite a busy clinic and we support the NGO through the clinic. And that has been the main source of our funding for most of the work that we have done here in Nigeria and Africa.

Well, I grew up here in Africa. My parents were poor and I was a member of the Red Cross Society when I was in secondary school and we go around schools in Akpugo and Agbani, distributing high protein biscuits for malnourished children. Over the years when I became a medical doctor, when I come back on holidays with my family, I am overwhelmed with sick people lining up, coming with all kinds of medical ailments. From there, I started bringing things home to do one thing or the other. I remember one day, they brought a man with bad abdominal pain. He was in so much distress and then he couldn’t urinate and I had nothing with me, so I just felt his bladder was too full and based on my clinical experience, I knew it was prostatic hypertrophy.

I had 18 gauge needles and I just brought it out and pinched it in the pelvis and you can see the urine shooting out. He got relieved and that was how the pains left. Since then, even now, I have the equipment to take care of it now. So, that is how I started doing this job. I hated human suffering. And then too many avoidable deaths and from there it kept progressing. Like today, I have seen three patients. Unless they don’t know that I am in town. Sick people are coming in every day. And as a result, I started setting up medical hospital at presidential road, Enugu so that I don’t lose people to follow up. Then, I can have a place for continuity of care.

I actually started Enugu USA medical mission, but it got too political for my vision. So, I decided to leave them alone and formed the African Mission of Hope. And we have people on our computer data base that we provide with their drugs yearly. We have kids with seizure. Like the other day, about two years ago, I was coming back and a young kid was experiencing seizure and I stopped and held her until the seizure stopped.

We accompanied her to her home so that we know who her parents are. Since then, I have been buying her drugs. Her mother told me that at school when it starts, people surround her; she is knocking her head on the ground, getting bruises until finally it comes down. So, I have been able to stop that seizure from medicines for about three years now. So, these are the kind of work we are doing. We have people from Nsukka, Nkanu, Awgu and Nike on my data base that I send their one year medicine. Their medical supply will expire in January, but before then, I have enough time to re-supply their medicine. These are people with stroke, with heart disease, hypertension and congestive heart failure who need to continue their medicine daily for them to maintain their lifespan.

Well, the social service, as I do this, even hypertension is rampant here, though people don’t understand it. We have cases of kidney problem stage three because of uncontrolled blood pressure. So, medical awareness is an important part of the mission of African Mission of Hope. We have pamphlets we are distributing to people. If you have blood pressure, you have to take care of it because if you develop advanced kidney disease, you cannot treat it because the treatment is expensive which is dialysis.  And dialysis is another thing that we are hoping to supplement in our hospital because you have to get dialyzed three times in a week to be able to maintain your lifespan.

But here, I understand that dialysis cost N45, 000 a session and most people don’t have it. So, what they do is that they get one session and they wait until they develop what is called uremic symptoms, which means that the kidney disease is making them too sick. And then, they have to go and get one dialysis which may take about six weeks or three months. But, that is not how it is supposed to be, it is supposed to be three times a week to maintain a normal life span. And as I deal with all these with my personal resource, I decided to dabble into public service because I hate human suffering and I believe that we can do more.

9magnets teams with podiatrist on exceptional free learning tool

Portage, Indiana – In partnership with Dr. Alec Hochstein, Diplomate, American Board of Podiatric Surgery, 9magnets LLC have developed a valuable application for patients, students, and physicians. The iPhone application, called iPodiatrist(TM), is available now for free in the iTunes App Store.

The application is the result of Dr. Alec Hochstein’s desire to bring a pocket podiatry guide into the hands of all iPhone users with feet. iPodiatrist(TM) is a complete resource, with an unprecedented amount of medical information, foot facts, educational videos, anatomy photos, podiatry reference websites, a fun foot themed game, and much more.

“We’re excited to help provide a valuable medical resource to all iOS users.” stated 9magnets LLC co-founder Cameron Banga, “With great foot condition information, fun foot facts, an action-packed game, educational videos, and more, this is the must-have medical app for all iPhone users.”

iPodiatrist(TM) is an exceptional resource on all topics foot related and the third medical application for 9magnets LLC, after completing Kidney Stone App and Prostate Pal in summer 2010 and winter 2011 respectively.

Located in Hobart IN, 9magnets, LLC was founded in 2010 by Cameron Banga and Michael Phelps. The team specializes in helping businesses and individuals bring their application ideas to life on the iPhone and iPad. They also work to help other mobile developers realize their mobile application marketing potential. To date, the team has developed 20 iOS applications and has received praise from the New York Times, Macworld, Fox Business News, MSNBC Health, and more. All Material and Software (C) 2011 9magnets, LLC / All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.