Watching sneaky kidneys
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From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I'm Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.
Kidney disease can sneak up on you. People don't realize they have it because they might not have any symptoms until the disease is very far along. Left untreated, kidney disease can lead to kidney failure and to death.
Doctors can spot kidney disease, though, with blood and urine tests. And people can tell some ways in which they have a higher risk. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, researcher Nilka Rios Burrows:
"The primary causes of kidney disease are diabetes and high blood pressure. And often, these two conditions occur together. Three out of 4 people who report having diabetes also report having high blood pressure." (11 seconds)
The CDC says kidney disease affects more than 26 million people. An article on kidney disease is in CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Learn more at hhs.gov.
HHS HealthBeat is a production of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. I'm Ira Dreyfuss.