Large Waist Increases Death Risk in Kidney Patients

People who have larger waistlines are twice at the risk of dying from kidney disease.

The study, led by a Loyola University Health System researcher, found that the larger a kidney patient's waist circumference, the greater the chance the patient would die.

Quiz on Kidney
The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs, each about the size of a fist, and are located just below the rib cage, one on each side of your spine.

Healthy kidneys filter about half a cup of blood every minute, removing wastes and extra water to make urine. The urine flows from the kidneys to the bladder through two thin tubes of muscle called ureters, one on each side of your bladder. The bladder stores urine. The kidneys, ureters, and bladder are partof the urinary tract.

kidneys remove wastes and extra fluid from your body. Kidneys also remove acid that is produced by the cells of your body and maintain a healthy balance of water, salts, and minerals-such as sodium, calcium, phosphorus and potassium-in your blood ().

Without this balance, nerves, muscles, and other tissues in the body may not work normally.

Kidneys also make hormones that help

Control your blood pressure
Make red blood cells
Keep your bones strong and healthy

Lead researcher Holly Kramer, MD, MPH, and colleagues showed that waist circumference was more strongly linked to mortality than another common measure of obesity, body mass index (BMI).

Acute Renal (Kidney) Failure- Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Treatment and Complications
Acute renal failure is the sudden cessation of the functioning of kidneys, that can be due to reduced renal blood flow, damage to renal tissues.

Researchers examined data from 5,805 adults aged 45 and older who had kidney disease and participated in a study called REGARDS (Reasons for Geographic and Racial Differences in Stroke).

They were followed for a median of four years and during that time 686 kidney patients (11.8 percent) died. The average BMI of the kidney disease patients who died was 29.2.

Body Mass Index (BMI)
Body mass index (BMI) is a simple tool that is generally used to estimate the total amount of body fat.

This was lower than the average BMI, 30.3, of the patients who survived. (A BMI between 25 and 29.9 is considered overweight, while a BMI of 30 and above is obese.)

By contrast, the kidney patients who died had a larger average waist circumference (40.1 inches) than the patients who survived (39.1 inches.)

Researchers compared kidney disease patients with large waists to patients who had more normal waist sizes.

After adjusting for BMI and other risk factors, women with waists equal to or greater than 42.5 inches and men with waists equal to or greater than 48 inches were 2.1 times more likely to die than those with trimmer waists (less than 31.5 inches for women and less than 37 inches for men).

Researchers concluded that in adults with kidney disease, BMI by itself may not be a useful measure to determine mortality risks associated with fat. The reason is that BMI reflects several components, including muscle mass and abdominal fat.

"In contrast, waist circumference reflects abdominal adiposity [fat] alone and may be a useful measure to determine mortality risk associated with obesity in adults with chronic kidney disease, especially when used in conjunction with BMI," the researchers concluded.

The study was published in the American Journal of Kidney Diseases.

Source-ANI