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  Can dehydration affect your kidneys? The answer is yes.    About 60-70% of your body weight is made up of water, and every part of your body needs it to function properly. Dehydration happens when you lose an excess amount of this important body water. This water loss can happen because of diarrhea, vomiting, sweating, or extra losses in your urine, such as...
What is vesicoureteral reflux (VUR)?

About 1-3% of all infants and children have a condition called vesicoureteral reflux (VUR), which means some of their urine flows in the wrong direction after entering the bladder. Some of the urine flows back up toward the kidneys and can increase the chance of developing a urinary tract infection (UTI).

UTIs that reach the kidneys can cause...

Complement 3 glomerulopathy (C3G) is a rare kidney disease that has two forms: dense deposit disease (DDD) and C3 glomerulonephritis (C3GN). Each is caused by genetic or acquired problems in controlling the body’s complement system, which helps fight infections. Genetic problems can be inherited or not inherited. The acquired complications arise during a person’s life.

C3G can have a major impact on a person’s health. The signs and...

What is glomerular disease?

Your kidneys may be small, but they perform many vital functions that help maintain your overall health, including filtering waste and excess fluids from your blood. Your kidneys have about one million tiny filter units called nephrons. Each nephron has a glomerulus, so that means there are over one million of them too.  More than one glomerulus are called glomeruli. Glomeruli work like strainers used...

Diabetes and high blood pressure can cause damage to both the heart and kidneys. If you have heart disease, it is likely that you have kidney disease and vice-versa. Many people don’t experience severe symptoms until their kidney or heart disease is quite advanced, but there are some warning signs. Could...

Diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries (arteriosclerosis) cause damage to both the heart and kidneys. So if you have heart disease, then it is likely that you have kidney disease and vice-versa. Many people don’t experience severe symptoms until their kidney or heart disease is quite advanced, but there are some warning signs. Could you be ignoring them?

The National Kidney Foundation shares...

More than 37 million Americans—one in seven adults—have kidney disease. Millions more are at increased risk for getting it, and most don’t know it. Kidney disease can be found and treated early to prevent more serious kidney disease and other complications.

The National Kidney Foundation (NKF) recommends three simple tests to check for kidney disease:

For information on upcoming NKF kidney health screenings...

Thin basement membrane disease (TBMD) is an inherited disorder that mainly affects the glomeruli, which are tiny tufts of capillaries (small blood vessels) in the kidneys that filter wastes from the blood. It is a rare disorder that has been diagnosed in less than 1 percent of the population.

The main symptom of TBMD is blood in the urine (hematuria). Another common symptom is protein in the urine (proteinuria). In most cases, there...

Nephrotic syndrome may occur when the filtering units of the kidney are damaged. This damage allows protein normally kept in the plasma to leak into the urine in large amounts, which reduces the amount of protein in your blood. Since the protein in the blood helps keep fluid in the bloodstream, some of this fluid leaks out of the bloodstream into your tissues, causing swelling, called edema. The swelling may be most noticeable in your legs...

What is BK virus?

BK virus is a virus that most people get in childhood. Symptoms can feel like a common cold. Once you get a BK virus infection, the virus stays in your system for good. But it does not cause a problem for most people. This is called latent, or like being ‘asleep’ in your body.  Sometimes, when your immune system is not working well, the virus wakes up. Then it can cause symptoms of infection. BK virus is...