Chronic Kidney Disease

[Chronic Kidney Disease

Introduction

The kidneys function to balance the composition and volume of blood. They help in the removal of wastes and regulate the acid base balance of the body. Kidneys help in the activation of vitamin D that is needed for the absorption of calcium and they help in the production of erythropoietin that is required in the synthesis of red blood cells (NKDEP 2011).

Chronic kidney disease is the heterogeneous disorder that affects the structure and function of kidney. This disease remains hidden and is discovered with the diagnosis of any other disease like coronary heart diseases and diabetics. The advanced stage of chronic heart disease increases the risk of mortality and the risk of disease prevalence is also increased with the age. The other diseases which exist with the chronic kidney disease become more severe with time. Chronic kidney disease can also lead to the failure of kidneys (Andrew S, et al 2012).

The disease is not associated with any symptoms but can be detected by performing the tests. Studies indicate that the treatment for the disease can prevent or delay the onset of disease and it can also slow down the onset of other cardiovascular diseases as well. Since, the chronic kidney disease do not shows any symptoms therefore it is not diagnosed in the early stages.

According to the US National kidney foundation and kidney disease, the chronic kidney disease is divided into five stages. The third, fourth and fifth stage can be explained by the glomerular filtration rate while the first and second stage is associated with the presence of proteinuria, albuminuria, haematuria or several abnormalities in the structure (NHS 2008).

Discussion

There are several methods developed for the identification of the chronic kidney disease. The judgment of amount of serum creatinine in the blood can be used to recognize the disease but the level of serum is increased when the kidney function is lost up to 90% (Levin 2000). The measurement of kidney function can be judged by the Cockcroft-Gault formula (Cockcroft, 1976). The Cockcroft-Gault formula is used to find out the rate of filtration in glomerulas (Knight, 2002). According to the recent studies, the formula for the modification of diet in renal diseases which was used in the automated reporting system of laboratories is replaced by the method of estimated GFR (Johnson et al 2005). This formula is helpful in calculating the levels of functionality of the kidney and the stage of the chronic kidney disease can also be identified (Reddan et al 2003).

The kidney function is normal when the rate of filtration is more than 90ml per minutes and when the rate of filtration is 60 to 89ml per minutes; it indicates the initial impairment of the kidney function or the initial stage of the chronic kidney disease. This is the point where the patient should be guided about the risks and the treatments of the disease to avoid further impairment of the kidney function (NKCD ...