When Body Cleaners Stop Cleaning

CEBU, Philippines - Kidneys in the human body are almost like trash cans. Difference is that these are more like cleansing machines that manage waste by itself. Poor nutrition disrupts these cleansing machines. Purported “value meals” can stop body cleaners from cleansing.

When you don’t clean your house or room, dirt and garbage gather. It becomes uncomfortable. The human body is like that. When body cleansers fail to clean or stop cleaning, other systems and organs are upset and will look for ways to reject dirt.

The Philippine Society of Nephrology has found that in 2005, chronic kidney disease ranked 10th as the cause of mortality among Filipinos. What incites alarm is that abusive and sedentary lifestyles and poor nutrition are causing most kidneys to malfunction among Filipinos. The reason is not the lack of food. Filipinos tend to have abusive lifestyles and eating habits that disrupt cleaning functions of kidneys. Smoking, intoxicating alcohol, eating too much fatty and salty food and junk food, sweets and drinking too much cola or softdrinks hasten kidney function decline. Sedentary lifestyle is another thing. Exercise helps to energize vital organs in the body and with sweat, enables the body to detoxify on its own. Without exercise, toxins in the body accumulate.

Nephrologists found that there is prevalence of 2.6 percent or 1.2 million Filipinos with chronic kidney failure. Simply, this means many Filipinos are accumulating dirt in their bodies either by what they eat and the life they lead.

Bean-Shaped, Fist-Sized

Though kidneys are mighty cleaners, scientists describe these as bean-shaped and fist-sized. This pair of blood cleansing organs filters blood, water and urine through a network of filters and tubes called nephrons which are the working units of kidneys. The heart pumps around 200 quarts of blood to the kidneys and in turn kidneys filter unclean blood that passes through 140 miles of tubes and filters resulting in urine formation. Filtered or cleaned blood then goes back into circulation while urine is stored in the bladder and is flushed out through the genitals.

Healthy kidneys are 24-hour cleansing machines. In addition to cleaning, these produce hormones that control and maintain normal blood pressure, stimulate bones to make red blood cells that carry oxygen to the whole body and keep body chemicals like salt, potassium, calcium, phosphorus, acids and bases in balance to keep bones strong.

Indeed, this bean-shaped, fist-sized pair is pretty busy. The last thing they need is food or drink that disrupts operations. But man, in his abusive and sinful nature, tends to give kidneys a beating.

Chronic kidney disease is described as either permanent kidney damage or decreased level of kidney function with or without damage for three months or more. In any case, decreased kidney function has potential of progressive loss of kidney function. Old age, family history of chronic kidney disease, reduction in kidney mass, diabetes and systemic infections can initiate kidney damage. But mostly it is what is fed into the body that cause or accelerate kidney damage.

Treatment for kidney damage is expensive and invasive. This is done through medication or dialysis which means cleaning the blood by artificial means. In dialysis, wastes and extra fluid that accumulate due to kidney failure are safely removed from the blood using a dialyzer (artificial kidney). Clean or filtered blood is then transfused back to the body. Kidney transplantation involves receiving a kidney transplant from another person (donor) through surgery. The new kidney (graft) does the work of damaged kidneys.