These 5 Daily Habits Cause Kidney Damage
Saturday, June 6, 2020
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The kidneys play an important role in maintaining a healthy body by helping to produce red blood cells, regulating blood pressure, detoxifying internal organs, eliminating excess water, and controlling the levels of important minerals in the blood.
Without a healthy kidney, not only various important activities in the body will be disrupted, but also increase the risk of stroke and heart disease.
Therefore, it is very important to maintain kidney health, one of them by stopping bad habits that trigger kidney damage, such as some of the following habits.
1. Too often consume packaged food
Most processed foods contain large amounts of sodium, which has adverse effects on the heart and kidneys. When the body gets too much salt intake, the body needs to excrete sodium during urination and increase the amount of calcium in the urine. In fact, the high amount of calcium in the urine will increase the risk of kidney stones.
To avoid the risk of kidney stones, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that individuals limit sodium intake to 2,300 milligrams per day.
2. To underestimate high blood pressure
Basically, the kidney is a large unity of blood vessels with the urinary tract. When you experience high blood pressure in large blood vessels, you will also have high blood pressure in small blood vessels.
According to the page The Healthy, letting high blood pressure out of control can damage blood vessels leading to the kidneys, and injure and interfere with kidney function.
3. Smoking
Cigarettes have long been linked as a factor in causing various chronic problems in human organs, including the kidneys. One study in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, and Prevention found that stopping smoking for 16 years or more can reduce the risk of kidney cell carcinoma by 40 percent.
In addition, smoking can damage blood vessels, and increase the risk of high blood pressure, which is a risk factor for kidney damage.
4. Less drinking
The habit of holding thirst and drinking a little liquid can harm the kidneys. Because, according to the National Kidney Foundation, not drinking enough water can cause a lack of fluids to rinse the system so that sodium levels are maintained and clean of waste. Also, a dehydrated body will have more difficulty maintaining blood pressure.
In fact, as previously explained, the kidneys are very sensitive to blood flow. Thus, dehydration will cause blood pressure to fall and blood flow to the kidneys to go down which if ignored risks causing kidney problems.
5. Overeating
Being overweight can increase your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, which in turn can increase your chances of developing kidney disease. According to The Healthy page, insulin problems from type 1 and type 2 diabetes cause inflammation and scarring in the kidneys. For this reason, people with diabetes need to have their kidney and urine function checked regularly.
Because the kidneys have an important function for survival, we need to maintain kidney health so that they can function optimally, one of them by avoiding the habits above that can damage kidney function.