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Chronic kidney disease is cause for alarm, even without other conditions

Category: Kidney Diseases

New research set to be published in The Lancet suggests that a lab test indicating kidney disease should be taken with dire seriousness, even if the patient doesn't have high blood pressure or diabetes. These findings were authored by scientists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Chronic Kidney Disease Prognosis Consortium, respectively.

One test indicated that poorly functioning kidneys could contribute to heart failure, even if the individual doesn't have high blood pressure. Another study showed that, although people with diabetes had a higher risk of heart attack than individuals who had tested positive on a lab test for chronic kidney disease, the latter condition carries the same risk of heart failure with or without being comorbid with insulin deficiency.

"Chronic kidney disease should be regarded as at least an equally relevant risk factor for mortality in individuals without hypertension as it is in those with hypertension," said Bakhtawar K. Mahmoodi, lead author of the blood pressure study.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that more than 35 percent of individuals over the age of 20 have some form of chronic kidney disease, and at least 20 percent of that age group with high blood pressure also have chronic kidney disease.