WHY YOUR KIDNEYS STOP WORKING PROPERLY

 

Kidneys can stop working over a period of hours to days if they are exposed to poisons and toxins or if they don’t get enough blood supply (for example, severe dehydration, trauma and blood loss) or if they suffer from injury secondary to our own immune system attacking them.  However, most of the kidney diseases are slowly progressive chronic diseases.  There are several causes of chronic kidney disease.  The two major causes are first, diabetes (diabetic kidney disease) and second, high blood pressure.

 

In diabetes, excess sugar in the blood can damage the glomerulus. In high blood pressure the ’pressure’ can do the same thing. A damaged glomerulus becomes leaky and lets too much escape. It filters out not only the excess water and the waste, but also an excess of albumin protein, a nutrient that normally stays in the blood. The filtered waste and excess albumin protein then move on to the tubules to be processed into urine. One of the problems here is that the tubules are not able to deal with this excess of albumin protein, and the albumin, likes other forms of damage, causes the cells in the tubules (tubular cells) to produce substances and/or signals which create and promote the scarring that leads to chronic kidney disease.