KIDNEYS ARE ANOTHER LIFE OR DEATH ORGAN THAT MAKES US WORK

Awake or asleep our body is furiously working to keep us alive. The kidneys are one of the many we aren’t even aware of. Our kidneys are bean-shaped organs, each about the size of your fist. They are located near the middle of your back, just below the rib cage. The kidneys are sophisticated reprocessing machines and every day they process about 200 quarts of blood to sift out about 2 quarts of waste products and extra water. They become urine which flows to your bladder through tubes called ureters. Your bladder stores urine until you go to the bathroom. The wastes in your blood come from the normal breakdown of active tissues and from the food you eat. Our body uses the food for energy and self-repair. After the body has taken what it needs from the food, waste is sent to the blood. If your kidneys did not remove these they would build up in the blood and damage your body.

The actual filtering occurs in tiny units inside your kidneys called nephrons. Every kidney has about a million nephrons. A complicated chemical exchange takes place, as waste materials and water leave your blood and enter your urinary system. At first, the tubules receive a combination of waste materials and chemicals that your body can still use. Your kidneys measure out chemicals like sodium, phosphorus, and potassium and release them back to the blood to return to the body. In this way, your kidneys regulate the body’s level of these substances. The right balance is necessary for life, but excess levels can be harmful. Our kidneys release three important hormones: erythropoietin-which stimulates the bone marrow to make red blood cells; rennin-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.

If you have two healthy kidneys, you have 100 percent of your renal function. Most kidney diseases attack the nephrons, causing them to lose their filtering capacity. The two most common causes of kidney disease are diabetes and high blood pressure. High blood pressure can damage the small blood vessels in your kidneys. Unfortunately, chronic kidney disease often cannot be cured. But if you are in the early stages of a kidney disease, you may be able to make your kidneys last longer by taking certain steps. If your kidneys stop working completely, you will need to undergo dialysis or kidney transplantation. The two major forms of dialysis are hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. In hemodialysis, your blood is sent through a filter that removes waste products. The clean blood is returned to your body. They are usually performed at a dialysis center three times per week for 3 to 4 hours.