(Press-News.org) Highlights
Individuals who are overweight starting in early adulthood are twice as likely to have chronic kidney disease at age 60 to 64 years than those who are not overweight.
Larger waist-to-hip ratios ("apple-shaped" bodies) during middle age are also linked with chronic kidney disease at age 60 to 64 years.
More than one-third of chronic kidney disease cases at age 60 to 64 years in the US could be avoided if nobody became overweight until at least that age.
In 2008, more than 1.4 billion adults worldwide were overweight, with approximately 500 million of them being obese, according to the World Health Organization.
Washington, DC (April 4, 2013) — Being overweight starting in young adulthood may significantly increase individuals' risks of developing kidney disease by the time they become seniors, according to a study appearing in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN). The findings emphasize the importance of excess weight as a risk factor for chronic kidney disease (CKD).
Because many populations across the globe continue to gain excess weight, Richard Silverwood, PhD, Dorothea Nitsch, MD (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, in England), and their colleagues conducted a study to see what sort of effect being overweight or obese might have on kidney health.
The researchers analyzed information from the Medical Research Council National Survey of Health and Development, a sample of children born in one week in March 1946 in England, Scotland, and Wales. A total of 4,584 participants had available data, including body mass index at ages 20, 26, 36, 43, 53, and 60 to 64 years.
Among the major findings:
Participants who were overweight beginning early in adulthood (ages 26 or 36 years) were twice as likely to have CKD at age 60 to 64 years compared with those who first became overweight at age 60 to 64 years or never became overweight.
The link between overweight and CKD was only in part explained by taking diabetes and hypertension into account.
Larger waist-to-hip ratios ("apple-shaped" bodies) at ages 43 and 53 years were also linked with CKD at age 60 to 64 years.
"We estimated that 36% of CKD cases at age 60 to 64 in the current US population could be avoided if nobody became overweight until at least that age, assuming the same associations as in the analysis sample," said Dr. Nitsch. "To our knowledge we are the first to report how age of exposure to overweight across adulthood may affect kidney disease risk," she added.
It is unclear whether the timing of overweight onset or the duration of being overweight drives the link with CKD seen in the study. Either explanation suggests that preventing excess weight gain in early adulthood could have a considerable effect on the prevalence of CKD. Doing so appears to have a larger effect than any treatment for CKD known to date, the researchers said.
###
Study co-authors include Mary Pierce, MD, Claudia Thomas, PhD, Rebecca Hardy, PhD, Charles Ferro, MD, Naveed Sattar, FRCP, PhD, Peter Whincup, FRCP, PhD, Caroline Savage, FMedSci, and Diana Kuh, PhD.
Disclosures: This study was funded by Kidney Research UK.
The article, entitled "Association between Younger Age When First Overweight and Increased Risk for CKD," will appear online at http://jasn.asnjournals.org/ on April 4, 2013, doi: 10.1681/ASN.2012070675.
The content of this article does not reflect the views or opinions of The American Society of Nephrology (ASN). Responsibility for the information and views expressed therein lies entirely with the author(s). ASN does not offer medical advice. All content in ASN publications is for informational purposes only, and is not intended to cover all possible uses, directions, precautions, drug interactions, or adverse effects. This content should not be used during a medical emergency or for the diagnosis or treatment of any medical condition. Please consult your doctor or other qualified health care provider if you have any questions about a medical condition, or before taking any drug, changing your diet or commencing or discontinuing any course of treatment. Do not ignore or delay obtaining professional medical advice because of information accessed through ASN. Call 911 or your doctor for all medical emergencies.
Founded in 1966, and with more than 13,500 members, the American Society of Nephrology (ASN) leads the fight against kidney disease by educating health professionals, sharing new knowledge, advancing research, and advocating the highest quality care for patients.
Highlights:
Growth hormone therapy can help reverse growth problems in children with kidney failure.
Growth hormone therapy increases bone turnover in children on dialysis
Additional studies are needed to evaluate the impact of growth hormone therapy on final height, fracture risk, bone deformities, and puberty in children with kidney failure.
Growth failure occurs early in chronic kidney disease and causes severe short stature in children.
Washington, DC (April 4, 2013) — Growth hormone therapy can help reverse growth problems in children with kidney failure, ...
COLUMBUS, Ohio—Two annually dated ice cores drawn from the tropical Peruvian Andes reveal Earth's tropical climate history in unprecedented detail—year by year, for nearly 1,800 years.
Researchers at The Ohio State University retrieved the cores from a Peruvian ice cap in 2003, and then noticed some startling similarities to other ice cores that they had retrieved from Tibet and the Himalayas. Patterns in the chemical composition of certain layers matched up, even though the cores were taken from opposite sides of the planet.
In the April 4, 2013 online edition of the ...
TORONTO, ON – Pigments found in plants and purple bacteria employed to provide protection from sun damage do more than just that. Researchers from the University of Toronto and University of Glasgow have found that they also help to harvest light energy during photosynthesis.
Carotenoids, the same pigments which give orange color to carrots and red to tomatoes, are often found together in plants with chlorophyll pigments that harvest solar energy. Their main function is photoprotection when rays of light from the sun are the most intense. However, a new study published ...
LA JOLLA, CA – April 4, 2013 – Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have illuminated the mechanism at the heart of one of the most useful processes in modern chemistry. A reaction that is robust and easy to perform, it is widely employed to synthesize new pharmaceuticals, biological probes, new materials and other products. But precisely how it works had been unclear since its invention at TSRI more than a decade ago.
"These new findings allow us to exert greater control of the reaction and make it faster and more efficient under the most challenging conditions," ...
Chronic or persistent pain is a common — and likely under-recognized — complication of ischemic strokes (caused by a blocked blood vessel) according to new research in the American Heart Association journal Stroke.
In a large trial of treatments to prevent a second stroke, researchers found that 10.6 percent of more than 15,000 stroke survivors developed chronic pain.
"Chronic pain syndromes are common, even following strokes of mild to moderate severity," said Martin J. O'Donnell, M.D., lead author and professor of translational medicine at the National University of ...
Walking briskly can lower your risk of high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes as much as running can, according to surprising findings reported in the American Heart Association journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology.
Researchers analyzed 33,060 runners in the National Runners' Health Study and 15,045 walkers in the National Walkers' Health Study. They found that the same energy used for moderate intensity walking and vigorous intensity running resulted in similar reductions in risk for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, and ...
A custom-built programmable 3D printer can create materials with several of the properties of living tissues, Oxford University scientists have demonstrated.
The new type of material consists of thousands of connected water droplets, encapsulated within lipid films, which can perform some of the functions of the cells inside our bodies.
These printed 'droplet networks' could be the building blocks of a new kind of technology for delivering drugs to places where they are needed and potentially one day replacing or interfacing with damaged human tissues. Because droplet ...
Non-invasive 'liquid biopsies' can find metastatic or recurrent prostate cancer, in a low cost assay suitable for most healthcare systems, finds research published in BioMed Central's open access journal Genome Medicine. Genomic signatures of prostate cancer, isolated from plasma DNA, display abnormal copy numbers of specific areas of chromosomes. It is even possible to separate out patients who develop resistance against hormone deprivation therapy, which is the most common form of treatment in men with metastatic prostate cancer.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer ...
Up to 2009 there is no statistically significant evidence of any reduction in smoking amongst men – and very little evidence of a reduction in smoking amongst women – resulting from the introduction of EU minimum tax legislation in Spain in 2006. This is despite the price of cigarettes rising up to three times faster than before the legislation came into effect, according to a new study published online in the journal Nicotine and Tobacco Research.
The World Health Organization's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control exhorts Parties to implement tax policies aimed ...
Cutting down on salt and, at the same time, increasing levels of potassium in our diet will have major health and cost benefits across the world, according to studies published on bmj.com today.
Such a strategy will save millions of lives every year from heart disease and stroke, say experts.
Much evidence shows that reducing salt intake lowers blood pressure and thereby reduces the risk of stroke and heart disease. Less is known about the potential benefits of increasing potassium intake, but lower potassium consumption has been linked with elevated blood pressure.
The ...
