Study suggests that ketogenic diet may reverse kidney failure

Study suggests that ketogenic diet may reverse kidney failure. See BBC News report.

Ketamine craze among teenagers is causing serious health problems

The Guardian reported that teenagers are risking kidney failure when they use ketamine.

Extract: “Ketamine, a powerful tranquilliser used on horses, is being taken in growing number by young people in the UK, causing crippling health problems.

Some addicts have needed to have their bladders removed and must now wear catheters. Other users have suffered serious kidney problems, breathing difficulties, addiction, bouts of unconsciousness and trouble with urinating. The drug also involves a heightened risk of heart attack.“

Apparently they turn to this drug mainly because it is cheaper than cocaine. – Well, however cheap it is, cash-wise, it’s shockingly expensive in terms of health.

I urge everyone to avoid all unnecessary pharmaceuticals, whether legal prescribed drugs or illegal street drugs. – Most drugs have adverse side-effects and these can often be serious and permanent.

Good nutrition is the safest medicine and the best life-enhancer.

Cutting down on salt and salty food and avoiding dieting lifts feelings of depression and lowers excess weight.

Guard your health! – It is your most precious possession.

FDA puts black box warning on bowel-clearing drugs

WASHINGTON -- Federal health officials have said they will add the sternest safety warnings available to drugs used before colonoscopies, following reports of kidney damage in several patients. The Food and Drug Administration said it has received more than 20 reports of a serious form of kidney failure among patients taking the bowel-cleansing drugs, known as oral phosphate products. The new boxed warning label will apply to Visicol and OsmoPrep _ both prescription tablets made by Salix Pharmaceuticals.
Read article in the Washington Post (USA)

Trasylol was withdrawn in November after a study linked the medicine to kidney failure requiring dialysis and increased death of those patients.

Doctor says 22,000 died amid Bayer drug recall

The lives of 22,000 patients could have been saved if U.S. regulators had been quicker to remove a Bayer AG drug used to stem bleeding during open heart surgery, according to a medical researcher interviewed by CBS Television's 60 Minutes program. The drug Trasylol was withdrawn in November at the request of the FDA after an observational study linked the medicine to kidney failure requiring dialysis and increased death of those patients. It had been given to as many as a third of all heart bypass patients in the United States at the height of its use over a period of many years, according to the report.
Read Reuters news report at yahoo.com

Laura Moon has discovered that she has four kidneys and hopes that she may be able to help a kidney patient by donating one or two of them.

How many people have four kidneys?
This is a Guardian article and here is an extract from it:

"People with extra kidneys are often oblivious to their excess baggage, and only discover it after an ultrasound scan or surgery for a more urgent medical problem. Laura Moon, an 18-year-old from Whinmoor near Leeds, heard of her bonus kidneys during an ultrasound to investigate recurrent stomach pains. Her case is particularly unusual, as each of her kidneys appears to be fully formed, at around 11cm long.

"It's extremely rare for additional kidneys to be complete. One in a million is probably about right," says Niaz Ahmad, a transplant surgeon at St James's University Hospital in Leeds. "I've seen thousands of kidneys and I've never seen this."

The condition is caused by a glitch in the first trimester, when the developing kidneys split in two. It is more common for these "duplex kidneys" to split only partially, or to grow a second ureter (the tube that drains urine into the bladder). Moon is having tests to check her four kidneys all work properly. If they do, she may be able to donate one or two."

You can reduce your risk of kidney failure by avoiding taking prescription drugs that cause sodium retention, e.g. steroids like prednisolone, and antidepressants like amitriptyline, unless they are absolutely necessary, and by reducing your salt/sodium intake to a minimum.

Visit my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/.html (The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Death from overdosing on Nurofen Plus.

Death sparks call for restrictions on drug sales

Extract from the Telegraph:

"A coroner has called for tougher restrictions on the sale of over-the-counter drugs after the death of a woman who became addicted to Nurofen Plus.

Linda Docherty, 49, trawled supermarket pharmacies and High Street chemists so she could take up to 64 pain-killing tablets a day.

She finally confessed her addiction to her husband and the family’s GP after two years.

However, by then it was too late and she died of kidney failure four days later.

At an inquest in Bury, Greater Manchester, yesterday, the coroner Simon Nelson recorded a verdict that Mrs Docherty died "by reason of an addiction to over-the-counter medication".

He said he would be writing to the Royal Pharmaceutical Society to ask whether the current regulations concerning over-the-counter drugs were sufficiently rigorous. "I feel that the system has to be looked at again.""

Pharmaceutical drugs do tend to damage the kidneys - and the liver too, come to that.

Remarkable kidney transplant arrangement for two American men, Clinton Johnson and Young Hwang

Couples swap kidneys to save each other - Sunday Telegraph

Extract:

"When it comes to reality television, wife swaps are a recipe for disaster. But two American men have discovered that the concept has life-saving possibilities.

Two months ago, Clinton Johnson and Young Hwang were both suffering from kidney failure and facing uncertain waits for donor organs; their choices were between debilitating dialysis and death.

Now they have taken part in a remarkable transplant arrangement that has left each the proud owner of a new kidney - given by the other man's wife. Mr Johnson, 58, from Laurel in Maryland, who received a kidney from Sun Hae Hwang, said: "I had decided I did not want dialysis and had accepted that if I did not get a kidney, I was going to die. Now I can look at a full life. It is amazing."

Mr Hwang, a 64-year-old from Oakton in Virginia, who was given a kidney by Mr Johnson's wife Pat Divinnie, added: "My kidney is a gift from God through a person."

The organ swap was organised by the Washington Hospital Centre, in the American capital, after Mr Hwang had already been waiting three years for a kidney and Mr Johnson was told his condition was rapidly deteriorating."

Reduce your own risk of kidney failure by cutting down on salt and salty food. - See http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/conditions.html

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Leading headache pills 'put strain on the heart' and up risk of high blood pressure, stroke, kidney failure: - NSAIDs, ibuprofen, paracetamol, aspirin

Leading headache pills 'put strain on the heart'

Extracts:

"Regularly taking some of the most popular painkillers on the market is linked to a much greater risk of stroke and heart attack from higher blood pressure, according to research published yesterday."

"Graham MacGregor, the professor of cardiovascular medicine at St George's Hospital, London, and chairman of the Blood Pressure Association, said last night: "High blood pressure is the biggest cause of death and disability in the UK."

There should have been warnings about these drugs years ago! - It's good to know that medical advice is catching up with the advice on my website! - My website has long had the following information (on page http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html):

A Note about Pain-killers.
The class of drugs known as NSAIDs - Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs - is listed as causing Sodium Retention and in particular causing swelling in the lower legs and ankles. These include commonly used pain-killers, which are available both as prescription drugs and over the counter drugs. Examples are Ibuprofen (Brufen), Aspirin, Diclofenic and many others.
Also remember that effervescent tablets may contain a high proportion of sodium, so you may prefer to change from taking effervescent tablets to taking the non-effervescent type.

And throughout my website (and in this blog) it is made clear that sodium retention is the main cause of fluid retention and obesity, which in turn causes many other health problems, the most significant of which is high blood pressure.

To avoid/reduce high blood pressure, try to avoid unnecessary medication. - If you have to take drugs it is usually a wise precaution to minimise salt intake because so many drugs cause sodium retention.

Lose weight by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!
See my website www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)