(Press-News.org) Researchers have found that conditions in the womb can affect kidney development and have serious health implications for the child not only immediately after birth, but decades later.
In a paper published today in The Lancet an international team, including Monash University's Professor John Bertram and the University of Queensland's Professor Wendy Hoy, reviewed existing, peer-reviewed research on kidney health and developmental programming - the effects of the in utero environment on adult health.
The accumulated evidence linked low birth weight and prematurity - risk factors for high blood pressure and chronic kidney disease later in life - with low numbers of the kidney's filtration units or nephrons.
In Australia, around 30 per cent of the adult population has high blood pressure and one in nine has at least one clinical symptom of chronic kidney disease. The incidence of both diseases is significantly higher in Indigenous populations.
Professor Bertram, Head of the Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology, has been researching nephrons for two decades.
"The kidney is particularly sensitive to life before birth because we stop making nephrons at 36 weeks gestation. So, for a baby born at term, the process of nephron formation is finished and it cannot be restarted," Professor Bertram said.
Humans are born with an average of one million nephrons and lose up to 6000 each year. However, Professor Bertram's research has shown there is a huge variance in nephron number - from just over 200,000 to around two million. Further, nephron number is positively related to birth weight - a low birth weight equates to low nephron number and larger babies have a higher nephron number.
Given that low birth weight occurs in 15 per cent of live births worldwide, the study has implications for maternal health and clinical screening processes.
"In terms of maternal health during pregnancy, things like a high fat diet, alcohol consumption, various antibiotics and stress hormones have been shown to have a negative impact on foetal kidney development, although more research needs to be done," Professor Bertram said.
"Further, given the strong associations between birth weight, nephron number and disease later in life, and the fact that a baby's weight is routinely recorded in many countries, we suggest that birth weight should be a parameter that clinicians use to determine how often a patient is screened for kidney function or given a blood pressure test.
"Although a newborn may appear perfect, if their birth weight is low, there may be consequences 40 years down the line. We could be proactive about detecting these diseases in the early stages."
### END
Good kidney health begins before birth
2013-05-31
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Is enough being done to make drinking water safe?
2013-05-31
There is a lack of evidence regarding the effectiveness of technologies used to reduce arsenic contamination finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal Environmental Evidence. More studies assessing the technologies themselves and how they are used in the community are needed to ensure that people have access to safe, clean water.
Arsenic is now recognised to be one of the world's greatest environmental hazards, threatening the lives of several hundred million people. Naturally occurring arsenic leaches into water from surrounding rocks and once in the water ...
Getting better without antibiotics
2013-05-31
Given the option, many women with symptoms of urinary tract infections are choosing to avoid antibiotics and give their bodies a chance to heal naturally, finds research in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Family Practice. The research shows that 70% of women with symptoms of uncomplicated urinary tract infections who did not use antibiotics for a week were cured or showed improvement.
Antimicrobial-resistant bacteria are already a big problem and the incidence of 'superbugs', which are resistant to several antibiotics, is on the rise. Over use of antibiotics ...
No benefit of double dose antiviral drug for severe influenza
2013-05-31
This is the first study to examine the effectiveness of higher doses of oseltamivir in cases of hospitalized severe human influenza (seasonal, pandemic and bird flu strains). The authors say their findings have implications for global guidelines, clinical management and pandemic preparedness, including for the current H7N9 outbreak.
Human influenza is usually a self-limiting illness. Occasionally, however, it can lead to respiratory complications, admission to hospital, and death. Some studies suggest that, if given early, oseltamivir can help reduce mortality. This has ...
Why animals compare the present with the past
2013-05-31
According to standard theory, the best response to current circumstances should be unaffected by what has happened in the past. But the Bristol study, published in the leading journal Science, shows that in a changing, unpredictable world it is important to be sensitive to past conditions.
The research team, led by Professor John McNamara in Bristol's School of Mathematics, built a mathematical model to understand how animals should behave when they are uncertain about the pattern of environmental change. They found that when animals are used to rich conditions but ...
Frontiers news briefs May 30
2013-05-31
Frontiers in Psychology
When language switching has no apparent cost: Lexical access in sentence context
Bilinguals have the remarkable ability to switch from one language to the other. In a new study, Jason Gullifer and colleagues from Pennsylvania State University, USA, looked at whether language switching incurs a processing cost. They show that the mind has little difficulty in preventing such mix-ups between languages. When 26 North American Latino people were asked to read aloud an underlined word within a text that mixed English and Spanish, they did not think ...
Ancient streambed found on surface of Mars
2013-05-31
Rounded pebbles on the surface of Mars indicate that a stream once flowed on the red planet, according to a new study by a team of scientists from NASA's Curiosity rover mission, including a University of California, Davis, geologist. The study will be published in the May 31 issue of the journal Science.
Rounded pebbles of this size are known to form only when transported through water over long distances. They were discovered between the north rim of the planet's Gale Crater and the base of Mount Sharp, a mountain inside the crater.
The finding represents the first ...
Scientists capture first images of molecules before and after reaction
2013-05-31
Every chemist's dream, to snap an atomic-scale picture of a chemical before and after it reacts, has now come true, thanks to a new technique developed by chemists and physicists at the University of California, Berkeley.
Using a state-of-the-art atomic force microscope, the scientists have taken the first atom-by-atom pictures – including images of the chemical bonds between atoms – clearly depicting how a molecule's structure changed during a reaction. Until now, scientists have only been able to infer this type of information from spectroscopic analysis.
"Even though ...
Sharks worth more in the ocean than on the menu
2013-05-31
Sharks are worth more in the ocean than in a bowl of soup, according to researchers from the University of British Columbia.
A new study, published today in Oryx – The International Journal of Conservation, shows that shark ecotourism currently generates more than US$314 million annually worldwide and is expected to more than double to US$780 million in the next 20 years.
In comparison, the landed value of global shark fisheries is currently US$630 million and has been in decline for the past decade. An estimated 38 million sharks are killed per year to feed the global ...
Team solves one of the moon's mysteries
2013-05-31
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — A mystery of the moon that imperiled astronauts and spacecraft on lunar missions has been solved by a Purdue University-led team of scientists as part of NASA's GRAIL mission.
Large concentrations of mass lurk on the lunar surface hidden like coral reefs beneath the ocean waves - an unseen and devastating hazard. These concentrations change the gravity field and can either pull a spacecraft in or push it off course, sealing its fate to a crash on the face of the moon.
"In 1968 these mass concentrations were an unwelcome discovery as scientists ...
Smithsonian scientists discover that rainforests take the heat
2013-05-31
South American rainforests thrived during three extreme global warming events in the past, say paleontologists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in a new report published in the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Science. No tropical forests in South America currently experience average yearly temperatures of more than 84 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius). But by the end of this century, average global temperatures are likely to rise by another 1 F (0.6 C), leading some scientists to predict the demise of the world's most diverse terrestrial ecosystem. ...