March is kidney awareness month... I wrote about our kidney transplant on my other blog....check it out ttp://giselamendes.blogspot.com/2011/02/march-is-national-kidney-month.html Here I wanted to talk about kidney health. I never realize how important our kidneys are until my husband had his own fail. It was crazy seeing him on dialysis hooked up to this enormous machine doing the job that two little organs do in our bodies. Allot of people don't realize the actual purpose of our kidneys, to be honest, I never thought about my kidney till I had to donate one of them lol. Before I talk about kidney health here is a quick lesson on what our kidney actually does:
What do the kidneys do?
The kidneys are bean-shaped organs, each about the size of a fist. They are located near the middle of the back, just below the rib cage, one on each side of the spine. The kidneys are sophisticated reprocessing machines. Every day, a person’s kidneys process about 200 quarts of blood to sift out about 2 quarts of waste products and extra water. The wastes and extra water become urine, which flows to the bladder through tubes called ureters. The bladder stores urine until releasing it through urination.Wastes in the blood come from the normal breakdown of active tissues, such as muscles, and from food. The body uses food for energy and self-repairs. After the body has taken what it needs from food, wastes are sent to the blood. If the kidneys did not remove them, these wastes would build up in the blood and damage the body.The actual removal of wastes occurs in tiny units inside the kidneys called nephrons. Each kidney has about a million nephrons. In the nephron, a glomerulus—which is a tiny blood vessel, or capillary—intertwines with a tiny urine-collecting tube called a tubule. The glomerulus acts as a filtering unit, or sieve, and keeps normal proteins and cells in the bloodstream, allowing extra fluid and wastes to pass through. A complicated chemical exchange takes place, as waste materials and water leave the blood and enter the urinary system.The kidneys measure out chemicals like sodium, phosphorus, and potassium and release them back to the blood to return to the body. In this way, the kidneys regulate the body’s level of these substances. The right balance is necessary for life.In addition to removing wastes, the kidneys release three important hormones:
erythropoietin, or EPO, which stimulates the bone marrow to make red blood cells
renin, which regulates blood pressure,
calcitriol, the active form of vitamin D, which helps maintain calcium for bones and for normal chemical balance in the body.
So you see, we actually can't really live without our kidneys...so it's important to take care of them. Allot of things we don't really think about can actually affect our kidney health such as, high blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol. So it's important to know that when creating a healthy lifestyle, its not just about how you look, so much as how you can keep yourself healthy enough to be able to live a long, happy life.
Here are some basic tips on what you can do to guarantee your kidney health:
Increase Fluid Intake
Drinking lots of fluids is very healthy for the kidneys. It helps flush toxins and wastes out of the body and is protective against kidney stones, according to the National Kidney and Urologic Diseases Clearinghouse.
Eat/drink Cranberries
Urinary tract infections are very common, especially among women. The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine recommends consuming cranberries and cranberry juice to maintain kidney health and prevent infection
Limit Salt Intake
The kidneys are important for maintaining a proper balance between salt and water in the body. Eating too much salt may increase blood pressure and make the heart work harder. It may also stress the kidneys, which could have difficulty keeping sodium levels balanced, according to MayoClinic.com. The website indicates that an adult should not consume more than 2,300mg of sodium daily.
See simple... Drink lost of water, have cranberry once in a while and really watch your sodium intake. If your family has a history of diabetes monitor your sugar intake as well, considering that diabetes can lead to renal failure. If you or your family have a history of high blood pressure, than you should monitor your blood pressure and stay away from foods that causes it to increase.There's so many tips and information on line, (you can also ask your doctor) that there's no excuse for someone to not take care of their health now in days. Remember being healthy benefits you, and your world(family and friends) SO.... be healthy!
References from http://kidney.niddk.nih.gov/Kudiseases/pubs/yourkidneys/#kidneys
P.S. BECOME AN ORGAN DONOR! ( to the world you might be one person, but to one person you can become the world!)
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