[Press release] Gut Bacteria Byproduct Linked to Chronic Kidney Disease for the First Time

From the 29 January 2015 Cleveland Clinic press release

TMAO Found To Be A Contributing Factor To Development Of Chronic Kidney Disease And Associated Mortality Risk

Thursday, January 29th

Cleveland Clinic researchers have, for the first time, linked trimethylamine N-oxide (TMAO) – a gut metabolite formed during the digestion of egg-, red meat- or dairy-derived nutrients choline and carnitine – to chronic kidney disease.

TMAO has been linked to heart disease already, with blood levels shown to be a powerful tool for predicting future heart attacks, stroke and death. TMAO forms in the gut during digestion of choline and carnitine, nutrients that are abundant in animal products such as red meat and liver. Choline is also abundant in egg yolk and high-fat dairy products.

The research team was led by Stanley Hazen, MD, PhD, Chair of the Department of Cellular & Molecular Medicine for the Lerner Research Institute and section head of Preventive Cardiology & Rehabilitation in the Miller Family Heart and Vascular Institute at Cleveland Clinic, and W.H. Wilson Tang, MD, Department of Cardiovascular Medicine in the Miller Family Heart and Vascular Institute and Lerner Research Institute. The research will be published online on January 29th and in the January 30th print edition of Circulation Research .

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more that 20 million Americans are estimated to have chronic kidney disease, many of whom are undiagnosed. It is caused by a gradual loss of kidney function over time. As the disease worsens, waste products can accumulate in the blood and can be fatal without interventions. It has long been known that patients with chronic kidney disease are at an increased risk for cardiovascular disease, but the exact mechanisms linking the two diseases are not known. This newly discovered TMAO link offers further insight into the relationship between cardiovascular disease and chronic kidney disease.

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Global Health: Time to Pay Attention to Chronic Diseases

From the 1 Ju;ly 2014 blog post

…While infectious diseases remain a significant problem in the developing world, cancer, heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and other non-communicable diseases are now among the fastest growing causes of death and disability around the globe. In fact, nearly three-quarters of the 38 million people who died of chronic diseases in 2012 lived in low- or middle-income countries [1].

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The good news is that many NCDs can be prevented by making lifestyle changes, such as reducing salt intake for hypertension, stopping smoking for cancer and heart disease, or venting cookstove fumes for lung disease. Other NCDs can be averted or controlled by taking medications, such as statins for high cholesterol or metformin for diabetes.

 

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[Reblog] Mesoamerica’s Mystery Killer

Structures of the kidney: 1.Renal pyramid 2.Interlobar artery 3.Renal artery 4.Renal vein 5.Renal hilum 6.Renal pelvis 7.Ureter 8.Minor calyx 9.Renal capsule 10.Inferior renal capsule 11.Superior renal capsule 12.Interlobar vein 13.Nephron 14.Minor calyx 15.Major calyx 16.Renal papilla 17.Renal column (no distinction for red/blue (oxygenated or not) blood, arteriole is between capilaries and larger vessels (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Interesting blog posting highlighting a few challenges epidemiologists face with kidney complications

From the 13 May 2014 post at robertbryan22

I’m catching up on my stack of periodicals. The 11 April issue of Science featured some fascinating articles related to public health [attn: Lexi].

The first, Mesoamerica’s Mystery Killer, focuses on chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) in Central America and it reads like a novel:

A young doctor in training at the hospital, Ramón García Trabanino, first brought CKDu to light. “The whole hospital was flooded by renal patients,” remembers García Trabanino, who began working at the hospital in the late 1990s. “I thought, ‘Why are all these people here with kidney disease? It’s not normal.’ ” An adviser suggested he do a study.

Over 5 months, García Trabanino interviewed 202 new patients with end-stage renal disease. Medical records and personal histories uncovered an obvious cause for CKD in only one-third of the patients, equally split between men and women. Of the rest, 87% were men and the majority worked in agriculture and lived in coastal areas, he and his co-authors reported in September 2002. Their report in the Pan American Journal of Public Health speculated that patients who had CKD with características peculiares might have developed the disease after exposure to herbicides and insecticides.

Health officials took little interest in this greenhorn’s findings. “I spoke with PAHO and I remember them laughing at me,” García Trabanino says. “They thought I was crazy.” The Ministry of Health in El Salvador took no action, but it did give him an award for his study. “The judges must have been drunk that night,” he says.

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