Understanding the Hidden Dangers of Obesity on Kidney Health

Can understanding the hidden dangers of obesity save your kidneys? Join us this week as Kimberlee, a registered nurse and VP of Clinical Services with Specialty Care Management, shares the profound impact obesity has on chronic kidney disease. From hormonal imbalances to increased insulin resistance, Kimberlee breaks down how excess body mass sets off a cascade of health issues that not only jeopardize your kidneys but also pave the way for diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. You'll learn how your BMI and waist-to-hip ratio can be crucial indicators of your kidney health and why monitoring these metrics is vital.

Kimberlee delves into the mechanics of hyperfiltration, explaining how our kidneys go into overdrive to manage increased body mass, potentially leading to harmful conditions like glomerulomegaly and proteinuria. She offers actionable advice on tracking essential markers like creatinine and GFR to keep tabs on your kidney function. Don't miss this educational and practical session packed with insights and tips to help you take control of your kidney health and prevent the progression to dialysis. Tune in and empower yourself with the knowledge to make healthier choices!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Hi friends, it's Kimberly here, registered Nurse and Business Development Director with Specialty Care Management. This month we've been bringing you Kidney Byte short segments of actionable takeaways that you can employ to help reduce the risk of kidney disease and its upstream progression to dialysis. In particular, we've talked about the five major risk factors for kidney disease, including diabetes, hypertension. We've talked about the role of the cardiorenal connection and the health factors associated with the heart health and kidney health, and this week we're talking about the role obesity plays in the development of kidney disease, now chronic kidney disease. Obesity is a pretty powerful risk factor. The main takeaway here is that the more flesh there is to feed, the harder the body has to work on a whole lot of levels to hormonal regulation, like things like adiponectin and leptin and other factors how your body manages renin and aldosterone and angiotensin. All these different factors come into play and the basic result here is that as we increase fat tissue, we find an increased demand for insulin, we find an increased resistance to insulin. We find an increased resistance to insulin. We find an increase in inflammation. We find an increase in oxidative stress. We also find abnormal lipid metabolism. These these things obviously have a powerful implications for not only um chronic kidney disease, but also diabetes, hypertension and heart disease, which, of course, are uh, major drivers for kidney disease as well. So, in general, the easy way to eyeball the health of your body mass is with your BMI, and in general, a healthy BMI is considered to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 18 to 25. At 25 to 30 will take you to an overweight category, and a BMI of over 30 is considered to be obese. And now keep in mind there are other factors. This is an easy eyeball If you want to spot check. Some folks who are very physical have high muscle mass your bodybuilders, your weightlifters, really physical people with a lot of muscle mass. Sometimes this can be misleading. So an even better way to calculate, or a more precise way to calculate that risk is going to be with your waist to hip ratio. Right, measuring your waist circumference is important. So these are just important factors to understand where you are on that continuum and the implications that are going on, the different factors that are putting you at risk for kidney disease.

Speaker 1: 3:34

Now, one thing that we also know is that as our body mass increases and there's more flesh to feed, there's more work to be done right On a whole lot of levels, and then the kidneys. What this looks like is an increased demand to filter more, so we call this hyperfiltration. The kidneys are having to work a whole lot harder. In addition, because of this extra workload that's being put on the kidneys and the glomeruli, we find glomerulomegaly. Glomerulomegaly is just where the little filters in the kidneys get larger, and as they get larger this hyperfiltration we're spilling a lot of sometimes protein in the urine or albumin. This is another important marker of kidney health is to check and see if you have any protein in your urine, so keeping track of your creatinine and your GFR. These are important markers that basically tell us how fast your kidneys are filtering and, in general, healthy filters they work pretty fast somewhere above 90.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Now, keep in mind, hyperfiltration is not necessarily a great thing. Sometimes I see folks who maybe right before they develop diabetes, that you might find a GFR like 130. And you think, well, that's not extra credit, that's a, that's a glomerulus. It's working really, really hard, this hyperfiltration. And then what we'll find sometimes is protein spilling over. Protein's a big molecule. It shouldn't be able to pass through the delicate filters in the kidneys, right. So where we see those things, that's an indication of damage that's happening at the glomerular level. If you have questions and you want to know more, give us a shout and, in the meantime, live well, make it a great day. Bye, friends.