Nephrologist alerts Nigerians on causes of kidney disease
The rise in kidney diseases has become a major source of concern globally. In Nigeria, the situation is even more worrisome owing to wrong diagnosis and lack of access to quality healthcare. Experts say the number of Nigerians with kidney diseases have doubled in recent times.
Worried about the development, a Consultant Nephrologist with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi-Araba, Dr. Babawale Bello, has called on Nigerians to find out the causes of the disease and prevent them.
Bello said many Nigerians were predisposed to kidney disease because one out of four of them is hypertensive. He identified high salt content in the nation’s foods, increasing rate of obesity among children and adults and sedentary living as factors increasing the population of Nigerians living with high kidney diseases
He explained: “We should focus on prevention and early detection. If people can check their blood pressure levels regularly, they can know if they have hypertension and manage it so that it does not develop into kidney failure, a situation that is irreversible.
Therefore, people should be aware of the causes of kidney diseases. Those living with hypertension should have their blood pressure controlled. People who have diabetes should have their blood sugar controlled and people who have all these diseases associated with kidney diseases including infections should have proper treatment.
In addition to that, all adults should have annual medical checkup to ensure their kidneys and other major organs of their body are healthy. According to the nephrologist, such tests are simple to perform both in terms of cost and procedure.
It requires just a urine and blood tests. Now, it is impossible to screen everybody every time, so I advise people who have the risks of kidney diseases to go for regular checkup”, he added.
He enjoined people with diabetes, hypertension, HIV infection and those with history of kidney diseases to go for regular checkup.
He further noted that people should also adopt a healthy lifestyle, such as having regular exercise, eating more fruits and vegetables and generally staying away from herbal concussions because most of them are actually responsible for the kidney problem.
On his experience at LUTH, Bello regrets that kidney diseases are on the increase. “We see at least 20 new patients in LUTH every week – that is some 20 new kidney cases every week. Now the experiences are not very encouraging, and that is because many of our patients cannot afford to pay for kidney care which is very expensive.”
