Chronic Kidney Disease is taking on epidemic proportions

Around 20 percent of the Portuguese population suffers from Chronic Kidney Disease and across Europe, 64 thousand people die every year due to kidney disease. This was the motto for us to mark World Kidney Day, last March, with the presence in the studio at Rádio Valor Local of Catarina Abrantes, nephrologist at Vila Franca de Xira Hospital, who brought us to give her testimony of what it’s like to live with this pathology, Joaquim Florindo, 64 years old, resident in Coruche, and user of the specialty in that hospital unit (listen to the audio in the image below).

Catarina Abrantes has no doubt that we are facing a serious public health problem when we think about chronic kidney disease, with the possibility that within a few decades it will become the leading cause of mortality globally, with Portugal currently being the country with higher prevalence of end-stage chronic kidney disease, due to the increase also “in many other associated comorbidities” and “difficult access in many regions to primary health care”. The doctor explains that one of the objectives is to “combat late referral to the Nephrology service”, that is, to anticipate going to the specialty clinic as much as possible, as “around 1/3 of patients arrive at the consultation already at a very advanced stage of their illness”. In most cases, chronic kidney disease does not cause symptoms.

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Joaquim Florindo is waiting for a kidney transplant. Despite the limitations of the disease, he has not lost his good spirits and for him the monitoring at the hospital and the relationship he has managed to establish with the professionals, who are almost like a family, have been fundamental. “It’s a spectacular team and I have nothing to say.” Every week he goes to Vila Franca for hemodialysis sessions. It was through routine tests, three years ago, that he discovered that he suffered from chronic kidney disease. “It never crossed my mind to have to undergo dialysis”, especially because I had no symptoms – “I walked well, and worked normally”. The specialist states that the symptoms can range from nausea, high blood pressure, to loss of appetite, but they are mostly diffuse and can be indicators of other pathologies than chronic kidney disease. The big warning sign, she explains, was when he detected blood in his urine. He was hospitalized at Curry Cabral, where he also found “a very good team”, but today he says he leads a normal life – “I have my land and my animals, and I do agriculture. At night, when I go to bed, I try to fall asleep and not think about the disease.” As for food, “I try not to overindulge,” but “I’m not one to take things too seriously, because days are not days.”

Joaquim Florindo says that he did not want to burden his family with the drama of his illness and does not want any of his family members to donate a kidney to him. He prefers not to wait for an organ from a living donor, but from a cadaver donor, “because I don’t want other people to suffer because there are always surgical complications”. However, he highlights that “the family has been important” throughout this process. He has been on the list for three years, and the waiting time “oscillates between four and six years”, adds the nephrologist. He adds that Portugal “has an excellent national and internationally recognized kidney transplant program with more than 7,000 people transplanted with functioning kidneys”.

One of the most worrying factors currently is “the increasing number of young people with problems associated with hypertension, diabetes, obesity”, and also warns of the chronic abuse of medications such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs that can progressively have harmful effects on the kidney. . “They are very easy to acquire and very effective, but they are increasingly a risk factor for chronic kidney disease. We must increasingly educate patients on the use of this drug.” Kidney health involves a healthy diet, an active life with physical exercise, and not gaining weight. As for patients at risk, “keep your health monitored”.