World Kidney Day is an annual global awareness and education event to spread awareness on several topics about kidneys. It is celebrated on the second Thursday in March every year by running charity events, campaigning, fundraising and spreading the word about how important healthy kidneys are and the problems people suffer with.
This year’s theme is ‘Kidney Disease and Obesity’ – “This year World Kidney Day promotes education about the harmful consequences of obesity and its association with kidney disease, advocating healthy lifestyle and health policy measures that make preventive behaviors an affordable option.” (http://www.worldkidneyday.org/2017-campaign/2017-wkd-theme/)
Here are some important facts from the WKD website, that I feel are important to know based on this year’s theme.
Kidney Facts
- Our kidneys filter around 180 litres of blood every day.
- Kidney disease is common and can affect anyone, including children
- Unfortunately there is no cure for kidney disease
- Kidney failure is fatal without dialysis or a transplant
- Around 64,000 people in the UK are being treated for kidney failure
- 3,300 kidney transplants take place in the UK every year
- Over 5,200 people are still waiting for a kidney transplant
- There are between 40,000 – 45,000 premature deaths in the UK every year due to chronic kidney disease (CKD)
- Nearly 1,000 children in the UK have kidneys which have completely failed and require lifelong treatment
- Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities are five times more likely to experience kidney failure than other groups.
- Uncontrolled diabetes and high blood pressure are the biggest causes of kidney disease
- One in four adults (one in five children) in the UK are severely overweight, which is a major risk for developing kidney disease
- the kidneys have to work harder, filtering more blood than normal (hyperfiltration) to meet the metabolic demands of the increased body weight
- Kidney disease is more likely to develop in obese people including in those with diabetes and hypertension.
- Obesity may lead to CKD both indirectly by increasing type 2 diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, and also by causing direct kidney damage by increasing the workload of the kidneys and other mechanisms.
- Reducing obesity may reverse or slow CKD progression.
So, now you know some important facts, so let’s support those with kidney failures and make people more aware of these facts.