Best POCT Solutions for Kidney Health, How to Prevent Chronic Kidney Diseases?
March 14, 2024, is World Kidney Day. Learn how to take care of your kidneys with this article explaining what Chronic Kidney Disease is, how it can be detected, and the available Point-of-Care meters and test strips. SoyMed provides you with our One-Stop POCT Solutions for Kidney Health.
What is Chronic Kidney Disease?
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a progressive loss of kidney function over months or years. Each of your kidneys has about a million tiny filters, called nephrons. If nephrons are damaged, they stop working. For a while, healthy nephrons can take on the additional work. But if the damage continues, more and more nephrons shut down. Eventually, the remaining nephrons cannot filter your blood well enough to keep you healthy.
When kidney function falls below a certain point, it is called kidney failure. Kidney failure affects your whole body and can make you feel very ill. Untreated kidney failure can be life-threatening.
How can Chronic Kidney Disease be detected?
Kidney disease often goes unnoticed, especially in its early stages. On World Kidney Day, we urge everyone to check if they’re at risk for kidney disease. People with risk factors should take a simple kidney function test to detect the disease in its early stages.
Kidney disease usually progresses silently, often destroying most of the kidney function before causing any symptoms. Therefore, early detection of the disease is crucial to prevent kidney damage or deterioration.
Simple laboratory tests can be done on small samples of blood and urine. Blood tests measure creatinine content and estimate GFR (Glomerular Filtration Rate). Urine tests measure creatinine and albumin excretion.
Your doctor uses the results of your serum creatinine test to calculate your kidney function or GFR.
Serum creatinine is a waste product that comes from muscle activity and is normally removed from your blood by your kidneys. However, when kidney function slows down, the creatinine level rises.
Glomerular Filtration Rate (GFR): Your GFR tells how much total kidney function you have. It may be estimated from your blood level of creatinine. Normal is about 100 ml/min, so lower values indicate the percentage of normal kidney function that you have. A GFR below 60 ml/min usually requires you to see a kidney disease specialist (nephrologist). If your GFR falls below 15, you may need to start treatments like dialysis or kidney transplants.
Urine albumin. The presence of excess protein in the urine is also a marker of Chronic Kidney disease (CKD) and is a better indicator of the risk for progression and premature heart attacks and strokes than GFR alone. Excess protein in the urine can be screened for by placing a small plastic strip embedded with chemicals that change color when protein is present (urine dipstick) into a fresh urine specimen or can be measured more accurately with a laboratory test on the urine.
What you should not forget:
Early chronic kidney disease has no signs or symptoms. Kidney disease can be treated. The earlier you know you have it, the better your chances of receiving effective treatment.
- Blood and urine tests can be used to check for kidney disease.
- Check and control your blood sugar and blood pressure.
- Get your kidney function checked if you have one or more of the high-risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity or you have a family history.
- Keep fit, be active, and eat a healthy diet.
SOYMED POCT Solutions for Kidney Health
SoyMed is an IVD industry professional with over 12 years of experience. we offer one-stop POCT solutions for kidney health to meet your requirements. For more information, please feel free to contact us.
