San Antonio "at the heart" of the nascent kidney disease crisis



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David Rodriguez was 36 years old when he was diagnosed with end stage renal failure related to high blood pressure. Two months later, his father learned that his kidneys were also failing.

After two years of dialysis, Rodriguez was fortunate enough to receive a living donor kidney transplant during a paired exchange in 2011, while waiting time for a kidney d & # 39; 39, a deceased donor was several years old. His father was not so lucky. One month after Rodriguez's transplant, his father died at 60 years old.

"All I do is in his memory," said Rodriguez, now 47, who left his legal assistant position for a new career as a patient relations specialist at the center. university transplantation.

Rodriguez was among kidney patients and researchers who met last week at the two-day annual symposium organized by the Texas Kidney Foundation, which brings together national and national experts to discuss advances in research on kidney diseases.

The subject and story of Rodriguez has a particular resonance in San Antonio, where chronic kidney failure and kidney failure are common because of the high number of health problems affecting the kidneys, including diabetes and high blood pressure. uncontrolled high.

The decline in kidney function is more common in the southern United States, especially in Texas, said Dr. Kumar Sharma, head of the nephrology department at UT Health San Antonio and director of the Center for Renal Precision Medicine.

Elsewhere in the country, 40 to 50% of cases of end-stage renal failure are related to diabetes, he said. Here, these rates are closer to 70% to 80%.

Related: Tragedy and Serendipity Make Kidney Transplant Possible for a San Antonio Man

"We are really at the heart of the highest density of patients with kidney failure," said Sharma.

If steps are not taken to alleviate the causes of kidney failure, the health system will soon be "outdated", he said.

The development of therapeutic drugs for kidney disease has been stalled because the effect of medicine in animals has not been translated to humans, said Dr. Robert Star, director of the Division of Renal, Urologic and Hematologic Diseases at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive Diseases. Kidney Disease, a branch of the National Institutes of Health.

This was associated with the decision of the kidney specialists several decades ago not to biopsy the diseased organs.

"We did not think it would help our patients," he said. "Unfortunately, that turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Star is working to address this with the Kidney Precision Medicine project, which involves collecting and examining kidney tissue samples from patients with chronic kidney disease or acute kidney injury.

On ExpressNews.com: Losing members because of a terrible disease

San Antonio is already feeling the effects of the kidney failure crisis.

In 2014, more than 14% of adults in Bexar County were diagnosed with diabetes and 35% were prediabetic, according to a talk by Anil Mangla, associate professor at the School of Osteopathic Medicine in Bexar. University of the Incarnate, which examines poor health outcomes. the south side. Even more people do not know that they have the disease, he added.

Bexar County has one of the highest rates in the state and nation for diabetes-related amputations, he said.

Improving people's diets should be at the center of kidney disease prevention, he said, especially among younger generations.

"We have to start with 10-year-olds because what's happening is that we're starting to see teenagers become diabetic," he said. "It's clearly related to diet."

On ExpressNews.com: Donors of San Antonio organs honored during a massive transplant

Kidney failure Pat Hernandez surprised her. In 2013, her legs became swollen and she began to have vision problems. When she was admitted to the emergency, her blood pressure skyrocketed.

The doctors determined that untreated hypertension had damaged his kidneys irreversibly.

"I did not know that high blood pressure would affect my kidneys," said Hernandez, 52.

Hernandez has been on dialysis for almost six years. Three times a week, she gets up before sunrise to go to her dialysis center before 6:15. For more than three hours, she sits in a reclining chair with a blanket. A machine filters the waste of its blood through a transplant. his left arm.

Hernandez is on the list of transplants of the University for a kidney, the organ most often grafted.

She encouraged people with kidney failure to seek the support of other patients.

"You do not want to be alone," she says. "They need to find someone to connect with."

Lauren Caruba covers health care and medicine in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read it on our free website, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | [email protected] | Twitter: @LaurenCaruba

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