Causes of Kidney Disease

Kidney disease can be broken up into two types of disease.  Chronic kidney disease occurs over a period of time and the person gradually loses kidney function until they eventually need dialysis.  Acute kidney disease occurs rather suddenly.  There is a sudden insult to the kidneys and the person often stops urinating quite suddenly.  Such a person needs dialysis fairly quickly in order to remove the toxins from the blood.

Diabetes is the number one cause of kidney disease.  Diabetes is responsible for about 40% of all cases of kidney failure.  Diabetics don’t develop kidney disease right away.  Many actually have a higher than normal filtration rate.  Over years, however, small amounts of the blood protein albumin leaks into the urine.  This is the beginning of diabetic kidney disease.  As this worsens, the individuals develop diabetic nephropathy and the rate of filtration falls.  Eventually, those wastes build up and further worsen the kidney function.

Kidney disease in diabetes rarely develops before ten years and it generally takes fifteen to twenty five years before the diabetic begins to suffer failure of their kidneys. High blood pressure often occurs along with this disease.  The peak time of diabetic kidney failure is about twenty five years into it. 

High blood pressure is another cause of kidney disease.  It accounts for 25% of all cases of severe kidney disease.  When a person has high blood pressure, it puts an excess of pressure on the delicate filtering mechanism of the kidneys.  Eventually this damage leads to non-function of the kidney filter and irreversible kidney failure.

Some people are born with a kidney disease called polycystic kidney disease.  When they inherit the disease, they develop large, nonfunctioning cysts throughout their kidneys.  This leads to kidney failure and the need for dialysis.  Other genetic diseases include glomerulonephritis, which is an inflammation of the kidneys that can lead to blood in the urine and poor kidney function. 

Acute kidney disease is often caused by trauma and sudden loss of blood flow to the kidneys.  Medication or drug overdoses can affect the kidneys, especially if the drug or medication is cleared from the body by the kidneys.  Septic shock can contribute to poor function of the kidney disease on a relatively sudden basis. 

Kidney disease can be caused by poor blood flow to the kidneys or to just one kidney.  The poor blood flow causes shrinkage and poor function to the affected kidney.  The affected kidney responds by putting out hormones that raise the blood pressure—often seriously so.  X-Ray dye studies of the kidney will show one normal kidney and a shriveled up kidney on the other side. 

Kidney disease can be treated by eliminating or improving the underlying cause of the disease.  There are some medications that will help kidney disease.  If all else fails, the individual has a shunt put into their arm and, through the shunt, they receive specialized kidney dialysis—sometimes as often as three times per week.  If possible, some patients with kidney disease receive a kidney transplant which is generally curative.