For patients with chronic kidney disease, statin treatment:
• Lowered LDL cholesterol,
• Lowered the risk of heart disease and stroke,
• Had no impact on the development of kidney failure,
• Was safe and well tolerated.
On May 1, 2014, the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) will join 14 other leading kidney organizations in Washington, DC, to push for essential change in kidney care. Participants in Kidney Community Advocacy Day, representing the nation’s kidney patients and health professionals, will meet with government leaders to discuss two issues that will improve the treatment and quality of life for millions of Americans: increasing federal investment in kidney research, and extending lifetime immunosuppressive drug coverage for kidney transplant recipients.
• In Australia, kidney failure patients from the most advantaged areas were less likely to use home dialysis and more likely to use in-center hemodialysis than patients from the most disadvantaged areas.
• Patients from the most advantaged areas were more likely to use private hospitals than those from the most disadvantaged areas.
• Dialysis patients with higher BMI, waist circumference, and abdominal fat measures had poorer scores on a 6-minute walking test.
• Patients with more muscle mass had better scores on the walking test as well as better scores on physical and mental health questionnaires
Certain prenatal risk factors are associated with the development of chronic kidney disease in children, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). Future studies should investigate whether modifying these factors could help protect children’s kidney health.
• Kidneys from most patients with chronic kidney disease were positive for active cytomegalovirus infection.
• Patients with higher levels of anti-cytomegalovirus antibodies in their blood had lower number of red blood cells.
• Cytomegalovirus blocks a protein needed to make a hormone that in turn stimulates red blood cell production.
• Low doses of atrasentan, an endothelin receptor A inhibitor, lowered urinary protein excretion by 36% in patients with diabetes and kidney disease.
• Atrasentan also lowered blood pressure and cholesterol levels without causing major side effects.
The President of the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) testified before the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee that a prize competition could help spur innovation in kidney disease research.
• In kidney disease patients, 30 minutes of walking improved the responsiveness of certain immune cells to a bacterial challenge and induced a systemic anti-inflammatory environment in the body.
• Six months of regular walking reduced immune cell activation and markers of systemic inflammation.
In African American patients with chronic kidney disease, poor quality of life was linked with increased risks of disease progression and heart problems
• States with broader Medicaid coverage among low-income nonelderly adults had lower incidences of kidney failure from 2001 through 2008.
• Low-income nonelderly kidney failure patients with Medicaid had better access to care in states with broader Medicaid coverage.
• In rats with kidney disease, functioning of the kidney improved when the organ was fused with the omentum, a fatty fold of tissue that lies close to the kidney and is a rich source of stem cells.
• Stem cells from a chronic kidney disease patient’s own omentum may help heal diseased kidneys without the need for an outside source of cells.
Highlights
• Older adults are the fastest growing population with end-stage renal disease in the U.S.
• The American Society of Nephrology (ASN) has released an educational video for medical professionals and key information for older patients.
Investigators studying chronic kidney disease have uncovered abnormal molecular signaling pathways from disease initiation to irreversible kidney damage, kidney failure, and death. Their results point to new drug targets for the disease.
The kidneys, two very important organs located in your back, help to continuously clean out wastes and extra fluid from your body. One in 10 Americans develops kidney disease due to diabetes, high blood pressure or a family history of kidney failure. For March’s Kidney Awareness month, doctors from the Mount Sinai Health System discuss risk factors associated with the disease and offer ways to help protect your kidneys.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) have created a synthetic form of low-molecular-weight heparin that can be reversed in cases of overdose and would be safer for patients with poor kidney function.
• In a study of 267 patients with chronic kidney disease, 69% of participants experienced at least one hazardous event related to their outpatient care.
• Hypoglycemia (in patients with diabetes) and falling or severe dizziness (in patients without diabetes) were most frequently paired with other complications of medical care.
• Biopsy-detected injury in donated kidneys was modestly associated with a delay in organ function in the first week after transplantation, but only for donor kidneys already known to be at high risk. Donor kidney biopsies frequently underreported kidney injury with substantial variability.
• There was a large degree of overlap between the results of biopsies from kidneys that were deemed unsuitable for transplantation and kidneys that were approved for transplantation. The quality of biopsies used in acceptance decisions was low.
• For pregnant women with kidney failure who underwent dialysis for more than 36 hours per week, the live birth rate was 85%, while it was only 48% in women dialyzed for 20 hours or less per week.
• Infants were a healthier weight at birth when women were dialyzed for more than 20 hours per week than when women were dialyzed for 20 hours or less per week.
• Pregnancy complications were few and manageable in patients receiving intensive dialysis.
The risk of a kidney donor developing kidney failure in the remaining organ is much lower than in the population at large, even when compared with people who have two kidneys, according to results of new Johns Hopkins research.
• Hospitalized patients who recovered from acute kidney injury had a 67% increased risk of experiencing coronary events or dying during a recent study.
• Acute kidney injury’s harmful effects on heart health were comparable to those attributed to diabetes.
• Domoic acid accumulates in seafood and is toxic to the brain
• The toxin damages kidneys at concentrations that are 100 times lower than what causes neurological effects.
• African-American dialysis patients with sickle cell trait received about 13% more of the medications used to treat anemia than other African-American patients to reach the same level of hemoglobin.
• Sickle cell trait was slightly more common in African-American patients on dialysis (10%) than in the general African-American population (6.5% to 8.7%).
A new study by Joslin Diabetes Center researchers that compares the metabolic fingerprints of patients who develop ESRD versus those who don’t has furnished new clues to the disease.
Patients with chronic kidney disease who received robot-assisted partial nephrectomy to treat kidney cancer have minimal loss of kidney function -- a smaller amount even than patients with normal kidney function, according to researchers at Henry Ford Hospital’s Vattikuti Urology Institute.
• Putative kidney progenitor cells contribute to kidney function decline by causing kidney scarring. Targeting these cells may therefore help prevent or treat kidney failure.
• Researchers have identified an additional but limited reserve of kidney filtering cells that are present at birth and become mature and functional filter cells by adulthood.
• Among women on chronic dialysis, sexual inactivity is common, with the most frequently described reasons being lack of interest in sex and lack of a partner. Rarely is sexual difficulty reported as a reason for lack of interest
• Most women on chronic dialysis—including those lacking interest in sex—are satisfied with their sex lives.
• Even small amounts of physical activity can lead to up to a 31% decreased risk of developing kidney stones.
• Eating more than 2200 calories per day may increase one’s risk of developing kidney stones by up to 42%.
• In individuals with moderate-to-severe kidney disease, those performing more than 150 minutes of physical activity per week had the lowest rate of kidney function decline.
• Each 60-minute increment in weekly physical activity was linked with a 0.5% slower decline per year in kidney function.
Changes to a key protein amplified its natural ability to counter kidney disease, according to a study published today by researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham in the journal Nature Medicine.
A large study co-authored by Dominic Raj, M.D., director of the division of nephrology and professor of medicine at the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences., identifies factors that mediate differences in the progression of chronic kidney disease in order to reduce the excess burden of end-stage renal disease and its complications in black patients.
Researchers found, in a genome-wide survey, significant differences in the pattern of chemical modifications on DNA that affect gene expression in kidney cells from patients with chronic kidney disease versus healthy controls. This is the first study to show that changes in these modifications – the cornerstone of the field of epigenetics – might explain chronic kidney disease.
• Most older adults initiate chronic dialysis in the hospital.
• Those who have a prolonged hospital stay and receive other forms of life support around the time of dialysis initiation have limited survival and eventually need to undergo more intensive procedures.
An investigational, man-made blood vessel used in vascular grafts for kidney dialysis patients may potentially show encouraging early results among study patients in Poland, according to preliminary data reported Wednesday by a researcher at Duke Medicine.
Diseases affecting the kidneys represent a major and unsolved health issue worldwide. The kidneys rarely recover function once they are damaged by disease, highlighting the urgent need for better knowledge of kidney development and physiology.
• Compared with women with advanced kidney disease who conceived after starting dialysis, women who conceived and then started dialysis during the pregnancy had a much better live birth rate (91% vs 63%), but their infants were of similar birth weight and gestational age.
• In both groups of women with kidney disease, babies were likely to be premature and of low birth-weight, which reflects the high-risk nature of these pregnancies.
The HOPE Act could allow individuals with HIV to receive organ transplants from donors with HIV, and may help reduce the country’s current organ shortage. The American Society of Nephrology worked hard to ensure passage of this no-cost legislation that may help reduce kidney transplant waiting times.
• Preeclampsia was associated with an increased likelihood of developing kidney failure; however, after adjusting for diabetes and hypertension, the association was attenuated and no longer significant.
• Additional studies are needed to confirm the association of preeclampsia and kidney failure.
• In patients with hypertensive nephropathy, kidney health was preserved in those consuming extra fruits and vegetables, which are highly alkaline.
• In patients with chronic kidney disease, those with high dietary acid levels experienced accelerated kidney function decline.
• In chronic kidney disease patients with low socioeconomic status, the detrimental effect of high dietary acid levels on progression to kidney failure was greater for blacks than for whites
Highlights
• Consuming at least two soft drinks per day is linked with increased excretion of protein in the urine.
• Moderate fructose intake increases salt reabsorption by the kidneys.
Highlight
• Among first responders at Ground Zero following the 9/11 tragedy, those exposed to high levels of particulate matter experienced significant kidney damage.
• An investigational drug called ZS-9 demonstrated promising phase 2 clinical trial results for treating abnormally high potassium levels in patients with chronic kidney disease.
• The immune drug abatacept did not provide benefits above standard treatment for patients with kidney inflammation caused by lupus.
New research provides direct evidence that genetic variations in some African Americans with chronic kidney disease contribute to a more rapid decline in kidney function compared with white Americans.
Genetic factors in African Americans with chronic kidney disease (CKD) put them at a greater risk for end-stage renal disease (ESRD) compared to white Americans, according to a new study released today in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland contributed data from two separate studies: the African American Study of Kidney Disease and Hypertension (AASK) and the Chronic Renal Insufficiency Cohort Study (CRIC).
New research from Mayo Clinic finds that half of elderly patients who start dialysis after age 75 will die within one year. The findings are being presented this week at the American Society of Nephrology’s Kidney Week 2013 in Atlanta.
Highlights
• Vitamin D levels had an almost linear relationship with annual kidney function decline among kidney transplant recipients
• Vitamin D inadequacy and deficiency showed significant dose-dependent associations with higher risks of organ rejection and death.
• In patients with chronic kidney disease who lowered their salt intake for two weeks, excess extracellular fluid volume, blood pressure, and protein excretion in the urine all dropped considerably.
• If maintained long-term, the effects could reduce a patient’s risk of progressing to kidney failure by 30%.