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By Veronica Beltran

kidney awareness month

TYH: What is kidney disease?

Mar 10, 2020 | 8:30 AM

March is the month of many awareness campaigns, such as epilepsy, ticks and also kidneys. We decided to focus on the latter–kidneys, for this week’s To Your Health.

So what is Kidney Disease?

Kidney disease encompasses a variety of conditions and disorders that affect the kidney, according to the Kidney Foundation of Canada. With most kidney diseases attacking the filtering units of the kidney and damaging the ability to eliminate wastes and excess fluids.

Who’s most at risk?

“The two main causes of kidney disease or contributing factors to kidney disease are high blood pressure and diabetes,” said Paul Ravelle, President of the Prince George chapter of the Kidney Foundation of Canada. Ethnicity can play a role as well with Southeast Asians, Africans, and First Nations people according to Ravelle. Smoking also increases the chances of possibly developing kidney disease.

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What can you do to prevent Kidney Disease?

Leading a healthy lifestyle can help reduce the risk of Kidney Disease, following a healthy diet, exercising and even reducing or eliminating your salt intake, potassium and phosphorus as well.

“Right now in Canada, for example, there’s over 29,000 people on dialysis and roughly around 3,400 people waiting for a kidney transplant,” said Ravelle to us in an on-camera interview.

The Kidney Foundation of Canada says that one in ten people will be affected by kidney disease at some point in their life. There are no warning signs to the disease and as of now there is no cure.