Shedding pounds through diet and exercise or even surgery may help obese adults with kidney disease ward off further decline in kidney function a new study finds.
Medical experts explain that kidneys filter waste products from the blood and excrete them in the urine. When damaged, their ability to perform these vital functions is reduced.
Some 26 million Americans have chronic kidney disease according to the American Association for Critical Illness Insurance and millions of others are at increased risk. By 2015, experts predict there will be more than 700,000 people with the most advanced form of kidney disease known as end-stage renal disease.
More than a third of US adults are either overweight or obese, putting them at increased risk for kidney trouble, not to mention heart trouble and diabetes. To determine if weight loss could help protect the kidneys, medical researchers at Ohio's Cleveland Clinic studied data from studies that examined the impact on kidney function of weight loss achieved through diet, exercise, or surgery.
The researchers found that losing weight through diet and exercise reduced one key measure of kidney damage - namely, excess excretion of protein in the urine, what doctors call "proteinuria." The medical report noted that weight loss achieved through surgery seemed to help normalize the rate at which the kidneys filter waste products in obese adults with abnormally high filtration rates.
The findings were reported in an upcoming issue of the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology.
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