High Blood Pressure and Kidney Disease
Your kidneys play a key role in keeping your blood
pressure in a healthy range, and blood pressure, in turn, can affect the health
of your kidneys. High blood
pressure
, also called hypertension, can damage the kidneys.
What is high blood pressure?
Hypertension can result from too much fluid in normal blood vessels or from
normal fluid in narrow blood vessels. Blood pressure measures the force of blood
against the walls of your blood vessels. Blood pressure that remains high over
time is called hypertension. Extra fluid in your body increases the amount of
fluid in your blood vessels and makes your blood pressure higher. Narrow or
clogged blood vessels also raise your blood pressure.
If you have high blood pressure, see your doctor regularly.
How does high blood pressure hurt my kidneys?
High blood pressure makes your heart work harder and,
over time, can damage blood vessels throughout your body. If the blood vessels
in your kidneys are damaged, they may stop removing wastes and extra fluid from your body. The extra
fluid in your blood vessels may then raise blood pressure even more. It's a
dangerous cycle.
High blood pressure is one of the leading causes of kidney failure , also
commonly called end-stage renal disease (ESRD). People with kidney failure must
either receive a kidney transplant or go
on dialysis. Every year, high blood
pressure causes more than 25,000 new cases of kidney failure in the United
States.
Next: How will I know whether I have high blood pressure? »
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From the Doctors at MedicineNet.com  |
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- Dialysis - Dialysis is a procedure that performs many of the normal duties of the kidneys, like filtering waste products from the blood, when the kidneys no longer work adequately. There are two types of dialysis: hemodialysis and peritoneal dialysis. Source:MedicineNet
- Hemodialysis (Treatment for Kidney Failure) - Read about hemodialysis, a treatment for kidney failure using an advanced dialysis machine to remove waste products from the blood, and then returning the clean blood to the patient. Source:Government
- Kidney Failure - Learn about kidney failure, in which the body has fluid retention, risen blood pressure, toxin build up and lack of red blood cells. Symptoms include fatigue, nausea, and apetite loss. Source:MedicineNet
- Read 37 more Kidney Disease (Hypertension-Related) related articles ...
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Last Editorial Review: 8/16/2006
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