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World Kidney Day today - ‘Research, awareness must to control CKD deaths’
Social media proliferation leading to non-scientific, non-validated and harmful information, experts said
More in-depth research by experts and greater awareness among patients of chronic kidney disease (CKD) are needed to control deaths due to CKD, experts have said. CKD causes 1.2 million deaths across the globe and was the 12th biggest cause of deaths worldwide in 2017.
Dr Narayan Prasad, head, department of nephrology, Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGIMS) said, “In the period 1990 – 2017, mortality due to cardiovascular diseases (CVD) decreased by 30.4%, cancer by 14.9%, and chronic lung disease by 41.3%. In the same time window, CKD mortality in all age brackets increased by 41.5%, whereas age-standardised CKD-related mortality remained static.
“CKD has been declared as cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk equivalent and about 7.6% of all CVD deaths could be attributed to CKD. New estimates suggest that CKD-related mortality will be the 5th leading cause of mortality by 2040. That’s why efforts are required to reduce mortality rate. The United Nations sustainable development goals aim to reduce premature mortality from non-communicable diseases (NCD) by one-third by 2030. It seems impossible without preventing CKD-associated mortality.”
The mortality cannot be brought down without bridging the knowledge gap in the community, health care workers, and policymakers to optimise kidney care, and the Indian Society of Nephrology is doing the same, said Dr Prasad.
He added, “Ongoing knowledge gap for CKD exists, that is demonstrable at all levels of healthcare systems, amongst primary care physicians, nurses, technicians, and public health policy makers. This has been compounded by the unbridled proliferation of social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. The commercial nature of these platforms often results in widespread proliferation of non-scientific content, particularly the use of many harmful herbs, many allergen proteins for building the body and water-bath like treatments of CKD, etc, that is not truly scientific, but costly and harmful.
“The poor-informed public and patients find it challenging to access scientifically authentic and validated information. This is especially true for low-middle income countries like India where resources are limited as compared to the demand for resources and people choose non-authenticated treatments that harm them, sometimes leading to death.”
Professor Rakesh Kapoor, administrative director, Medanta Lucknow, said, “Regular screening of individuals is important like in the West. We suggest all high-risk people for CKD, elderly above 60 years, diabetics, hypertensives, obese patients, people with a family history of CKD, chronic smokers, and people with stone diseases to screen themselves for CKD with an examination of urine and estimating serum creatinine value and glomerular filtration rate.”
