Archive for the 'Urology' Category

Did you know that there are chemicals in some diet sodas that may actually help dissolve kidney stones?

Recent research presented by the American Urology Association found that the substances citrate and malate were present in several diet sodas in amounts high enough to help dissolve kidney stones.

The highest levels were seen in Diet 7-Up and Diet Sunkist Orange, respectively.

Citrate is also present in lemon juice; interestingly, both sodas mentioned by name are citrus based.

While no one is suggesting that diet soda could be an effective treatment for kidney stones, researchers do think that the occasional diet soda could actually be beneficial in preventing the development of kidney stones.

People who suffer from kidney stones but who deliberately avoid carbonated beverages may want to indulge in the occasional diet soda.

Dehydration is a common contributor to the development of kidney stones. If you suffer from kidney stones, make sure to remain hydrated, and do not substitute diet soda for the water you should be drinking.

Lemonade made with real lemons can be a healthy beverage choice for kidney stone sufferers as long as you avoid consuming excessive sugar. Avoiding salty foods and excessive calcium is also recommended.

Kidney dialysis is very hard on the veins of the patient.

Most patients need a shunt: a blood vessel especially strengthened to withstand the repeated connections to the dialysis machine.

When the patient doesn’t have an appropriate blood vessel, a plastic material is used. These plastic shunts do not last well, frequently becoming infected and inflamed.

What if it were possible to grow a new artificial vessel, one from the patient’s own cells?

Promising research indicates scientists may be able to do just that in the future. So far they have grown new, artificial blood vessels for 10 patients, and preliminary results are promising.

The process of growing an artificial blood vessel takes about 6 months, and uses cells from the skin on the patient’s hand.

Artificial blood vessels would not only be useful for dialysis patients, but also for patients who need coronary artery bypass surgery or other similar surgical procedures.

The artificial blood vessels are expensive, costing as much as $20,000. A plastic shunt can be purchased for about $3,000.

However, if an artificial blood vessel lasts longer than a plastic shunt and does not require frequent replacement, or cause infection and inflammation, the cost may not remain an issue.

Most of the women and few men suffer from painful urinary tract infections.

Some of you can suffer from frequent UTIs while others can experience it once in a while.

Whatever may be the cause or how frequent they are, UTI can cause severe discomfort to every one.

Fortunately, it is possible to control the frequency of UTIs with certain simple changes in your routine lifestyle.

Drink plenty of water

This is the first and foremost tip that every doctor suggests the person with urinary tract infections. Water cleans your urinary tract system and flushes out the infectious bacteria out from your urinary tract.

As a result, you can reduce the frequency of UTIs initially and as the time goes on, you can completely prevent it by drinking water.

Urinate promptly

Even though it can make you feel guilty to urinate frequently, it is recommended to flush out urine frequently.

If you hold it when you actually need to urinate, it certainly helps the bacteria to develop completely. So, to avoid such undesired condition, don’t hold your urge to urinate.

Keep genital areas clean

Are you one among those million people suffering with urinary tract infections (UTI’s)? It has been estimated that millions of people are confirmed with urinary tract infections every year.

Infections to urinary system are the second most common type of infection affecting many people, particularly women, around the world.

Whenever any infection causing germs enter into your urinary tract, they can potentially cause urinary tract infections.

Most of the urinary tract infections are considered as bladder infections.

Usually, these bladder infections are not dangerous and if you get appropriate treatment at right time, then it is quite easy for you to get rid of it.

But, if urinary tract infections mainly infect your kidneys, then it becomes very serious health condition for you and causes permanent damage to your kidneys (Kidney failure).

In general, when infection causing germs enter into your urethra, they reside in your large intestine and are usually seen in stool.

If these germs enter into urethra, they will possibly enter into your kidneys and bladder and causes infection in these particular organs.

Do you have diabetes or blood pressure? Are you aware of chronic renal failure? When you are diagnosed with diabetes or hypertension, it is very important for you to keep blood sugar and blood pressure levels in control to avoid various health complications.

Chronic renal failure is one among those health risks associated with poorly controlled blood pressure and blood sugar levels.

In chronic renal failure, you can experience progressive loss of normal kidney function.

Initially, due to their inability, kidneys try to compensate this renal damage by excessive straining of blood (commonly known as hyper-filtration) within the remaining functional nephrons.

Overtime, this hyper-filtration leads to further loss of kidney function and leads to complicated health conditions.

Diabetes and high blood pressure are potential triggers!

Unlike acute renal failure, chronic renal failure progressively becomes worse and more often it results from other health conditions such as diabetes or high blood pressure. Usually, renal failure can range from mild dysfunction to severe kidney failure.

At early stages of chronic renal failure, you may not have any signs and symptoms and the disease reaches worse stage gradually. The progression of the disease is too slow that the symptoms do not occur until the proper functioning of kidney reaches less than one-tenth of normal.

Pyelonephritis is the most common and serious urinary tract infection that significantly involves your upper part of the urinary tract and also causes severe inflammation to your kidneys.

If left untreated, this urinary tract infection permanently damages your kidneys [Kidney Damage] or possibly spreads into your blood stream and causes serious life-threatening infection for you.

In general, your kidneys filter unnecessary wastes from your blood and adjust the blood levels of many substances and conserves or excretes the water according to the requirement of your body.

Urine is the main byproduct of this filtration of wastes. From kidneys, urine enters into bladder through ureter tubes.

So, when your bladder stores urine, until you clear your bladder, there is chance for your kidneys to get infection with the bacterium that is present in the urine.

Be aware with the effects of pyelonephritis on your health!

If left untreated, pyelonephritis can potentially lead you to serious health complications such as poisoning of blood or permanent damage to your kidneys.

When your kidneys are damaged, the filtration of wastes from your body suddenly stops and the infectious bacteria present in your body wastes spread throughout your body. As a result, your blood becomes poisonous.

Did you ever think why are you suffering with diabetes or high blood pressure? There can be a wide range of causes for you to experience high blood pressure or even diabetes.

But, the most common factor, which can increase your risk of high blood pressure and diabetes, is renal artery stenosis.

Renal artery stenosis is the condition where the main blood supplying arteries of your kidneys gets narrowed or blocked because of fat or cholesterol accumulation.

This accumulation of fat or cholesterol significantly impairs the blood flow through kidneys and results in impaired kidney function.

Subsequently, this impaired functioning of your kidneys progresses to severe high blood pressure or diabetes.

In general, each kidney in your body gets it blood flow through an important artery called renal artery that arises from aorta, a major blood vessel of your heart. So, if one of the both renal arteries narrows, it will eventually cause decreased blood flow to the kidney. This narrowing of renal arteries is mainly referred as renal artery stenosis.

Hormonal response!

When the volume of blood flow to your kidneys is reduced, it mainly results in hormonal response in your body. This hormonal system is stimulated as a defense against low blood pressure in your renal system.

When your kidneys are unable to do some of their works, kidney dialysis helps to do the work of your kidneys.

Mainly, the functions of kidneys include: removing waste products from your blood, removing excess fluids, restoring the levels of electrolytes and controlling your blood pressure.

Basically there are two types of kidney dialysis: peritoneal and hemo dialysis. During the day of dialysis you will feel tired. The next day after dialysis, your tiredness will decrease and you get more energy.

You need to have kidney dialysis at least three times a week and 3-4 hours for each time. The good news about dialysis is that the dialysis doesn’t have to last forever for some people. You can also try for kidney transplant, but you need to prepare for lots of tests before you receive the new kidney.

This life saver process helps in cleaning your body and you will get rid of what your body can’t do on its own any more.

Hemodialysis:

Most of the people have a force in their arm where they catch up the dialysis machine. On one side of the dialysis machine the dialystate is going to flow and on the other side your blood is going to flow and after cleansing the blood, it returns to you.

According to the new research acknowledging 2007 National Health Grand Award, 18.5 percent people are at risk of having chronic kidney failure and other vascular diseases.

This research involved 97 percent of the municipality population including senior citizens and children.

Blood pressure affects the decline in kidney failure and diabetes can also lead to kidney failure.

The management of kidney disease is very difficult and it sometimes can lead to different types of other issues.

Depending on the condition, there are two types of kidney failure. One is acute and the other is chronic.

Sudden and complete loss of kidney function is acute kidney failure and gradual decrease of kidney function in both kidneys is chronic kidney failure.

Treatment Choices To Replace The Function Of Failed Kidneys:

There are different types of treatments present for those who are suffering from kidney failure.

Hemodialysis. The purpose of hemodialysis is cleaning and filtering blood to free the body from harmful wastes, extra salts, and extra wastes temporarily by using a machine.

Hemodialysis helps to balance the important chemicals like potassium, calcium, bicarbonates, etc in the body and also helps controlling blood pressure.

An infection or inflammation of one or both the kidneys is kidney infection.

Pyelonephritis and glomerulonephritis are the two major kidney disorders caused due to kidney infection.

The infection usually starts in the bladder. From there the infection travels through the tubes to the kidneys.

Kidney infection can lead to kidney failure

Cystitis is a common bladder disease, which can cause kidney infection if untreated or not diagnosed immediately.

Considering the anatomy of the urinary tract, the kidneys are located on each side of the abdomen, partially covered by lower ribs. Kidneys make urine and flows through the tubes (ureters) down into the bladder.

The bladder is typically the size of a large grapefruit. Bladder holds the urine until it gets fill. The sphincter muscles when relaxed allow the urine pass out of the body emptying the bladder.

In this process, in males the urine passes from the urethra through the prostate gland and then through the penis. When considering the distance, in males it takes long time to travel the urine to pass out of the body when compared to women.