Kidney disease affects more than 1 in 7 adults in the U.S., with emerging environmental exposures playing roles in driving renal damage. Researchers are also uncovering global clusters of chronic kidney disease among agricultural workers.
Chronic kidney disease is far more common than many realize, impacting a significant portion of the adult population in the U.S., according to the source.
In the U.S., researchers estimate more than 35 million U.S. adults—more than 1 in every 7 adults—have chronic kidney disease.
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Kidney Disease | National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
High sodium intake also forces the nephrons—the tiny filtering units of the kidneys—to work harder to remove excess fluid and maintain balance. Preventing or managing health conditions that cause chronic kidney disease, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, may help prevent the condition or slow its progression. Adopting healthy lifestyle habits, such as eating right, maintaining a healthy weight, staying physically active, and avoiding medicines that can injure the kidneys, may also help keep your kidneys healthier longer.
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Global Occupational Risks and Early Biological Markers
Beyond dietary factors, researchers examining kidney health are uncovering severe occupational vulnerabilities in agricultural and manual labor populations. Over the last few decades, a unique epidemic of chronic kidney disease has emerged that cannot be explained by traditional or known risk factors. Referred to here as chronic kidney disease of uncertain (or unknown) origin (CKDu), this disease is also known as Mesoamerican Nephropathy (MeN) or CKD of non-traditional origin (CKDnt).
Risk factors for cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic disease can be identified in
A devastating public health problem, CKDu is a progressive and fatal loss of kidney function. It occurs in the absence of conditions known to cause kidney disease, like diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, and infections. The disease is found mostly among agricultural workers in hot, humid regions, such as Central America, Sri Lanka, and India. Although the true burden of the disease is challenging to estimate, CKDu has been associated with more than 20,000 deaths in the last five years. With global temperatures rising, agricultural workers who continually face severe heat stress may have increased rates of CKDu.
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) currently funds research to understand how environmental factors, genetics, and other factors are involved in CKDu. In collaboration with other health organizations, NIEHS supported international workshops to bring experts together to discuss current knowledge.
In related research published in Nature Metabolism and led by first author Heather Highland, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health, investigators discovered that risk factors for cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic disease can be identified in children as young as 8. Using a group of 273 children who participate in the Border Health Research Cohort within the Border Health Research Center at UTHealth Houston School of Public Health in Brownsville, researchers analyzed 5,000 proteins and identified six “signatures” of proteins that significantly influence the risk of developing cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic disease in adulthood.
"Understanding the development of cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic disease across the lifecourse is critical," Highland said. "Proteins circulating in the blood can serve as markers of nascent pathologies across the body. These early markers can help identify people at greater risk for increased monitoring and potentially early intervention."
To confirm the findings, the team assessed the association of their protein signatures with disease outcomes in more than 28,000 adults participating in the UK Biobank, a large-scale prospective study of more than 500,000 people living in the UK. Individuals in the UK Biobank who had the similar protein signatures were at a higher risk of having a heart attack or other poor health outcomes associated with cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic disease, according to the team.