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11 Tips to Keep Your Kidneys Healthy

A healthy kidney leads to a healthy body as kidney problems are silent killers, having a major affect on your life. This is why you need to work at keeping your kidney healthy and reducing the risk of developing kidney diseases with the following rules:

1. Maintain Your Health: Managing your blood pressure and sugar levels go a long way in reducing the risks of chronic kidney disease. Keeping your cholesterol levels in the target range helps reduce and control heart disease, another important means to a healthy kidney. Including some exercise to your everyday routine like regular walking, swimming, jogging or even aerobics helps.

2. Keeping Sugar Levels in Check: As most of the diabetics develop kidney problems, it’s important for diabetics to regularly check their kidney functioning. This is important as it’s only if kidney damage induced by diabetes is detected early can it be prevented and risks reduced.

3. Checking Your Blood Pressure Regularly: High blood pressure can not only lead to stroke or heart attack but also lead to kidney damage. If your blood pressure is 140/90, then you have to regularly monitor your blood pressure levels and discuss its associated risks with your doctor.

4. Have a Healthy Diet: Eating healthy goes a long way at preventing diseases like diabetes, heart disease and other chronic kidney disease associated conditions. Start reducing your salt intake to only 5-6 grams a day by cooking your own food with healthy ingredients, and avoiding processed and restaurant food. Eat more of healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables, low-fat dairy foods and whole grains.

5. Sufficient Intake of Water: It’s good to maintain a habit of drinking 3-4 litres of water per day as it helps the kidneys clear and eliminate all the toxins, urea and sodium from the body. This helps in reducing the chances of chronic kidney disease. However, the right level of fluids your body requires depends on various factors like gender, health conditions, the amount of exercise you do, pregnancy and breast feeding. Besides, those who have had kidney stones have to drink plenty of water to reduce the chances of forming new stones.

6. Quit Smoking: Smoking is not only bad for your lungs but your kidneys and overall health. It reduces the blood flow to kidneys which in turn reduces its functioning abilities. It also increases the chances of kidney cancer by 50%.

7. Avoiding Over-The-Counter Pills: If you take pain killers or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen regularly, stop it. They are known to cause kidney damage and potential disease if taken regularly. They are okay to take if you have healthy kidneys and if you use them only in emergencies. However, if you have chronic back pain or arthritis, then it’s better to consult with your doctor and find some other means of controlling your pain without any risk on your kidneys.

8. Regular Health Checkups: Regular checkups are important for not only those with diabetes, blood pressure and heart disease, but also if you are obese, have a family history of kidney disease.

9. Reduce Weight: If you are on the obese side, work at reducing weight by eating healthy and having regular exercise. Obesity strains your kidneys and makes it overwork, which in turn damages it to lead to kidney problems.

10. Take Prescribed Medications Regularly: If you have health problems like diabetes, heart disease or blood pressure, make sure you take your medications regularly. This will reduce the stress on the kidneys.

11. Limited Alcohol: If you drink learn to control your alcohol consumption and not overdo it. While limited alcohol is okay for your body, too much strains your kidneys too as it needs to work more to remove its toxins from your body.

Kidneys are one of the vital organs of the body; you need to take extra care in order to ensure that you stay healthy. Follow the above tips mentioned to keep your kidneys in good condition. However if you are concerned about yourself, a family member or a friend you can consult Dr.Anil Shrikhande for any kidney related issues.

Dr.Anil Shrikhande is a urologist with more than 30 years of experience and is the director of Shrikhande Hospital and Research centre. His area of professional interests focuses on kidney stone disease and chronic kidney disease.

Tags: healthcare, healthy diet, Kidney problems, Kidney Stone, Kidney Stone Symptoms