Chronic kidney disease’s fatal season

If you want to improve your Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) using lifestyle changes, you’re probably thinking of food and exercise.

And those are important factors.

A new study in the Journal of Atherosclerosis and Thrombosis, however, reveals an even more important factor—the season of the year.

Apparently, there is a specific time of the year most people with CKD die. Fortunately, there is a simple way to avoid this.

The study, conducted in Seoul, South Korea, focused on the concept of perceived temperature, which is essentially how hot we feel.

This measure takes into account not just the air temperature but also other factors like humidity, wind speed, cloud cover, sweat, and internal heat generation through metabolism to determine the overall heat impact on the human body.

For the study, the researchers recruited a large group of 32,870 patients with CKD from three medical centers in Seoul. The study spanned over many years, from 2001 to 2018, as they wanted to understand long-term exposure to perceived temperatures.

They calculated the perceived temperature and checked how many CKD patients died and when. They adjusted for various factors that could influence health outcomes, including sex, age, body mass index, high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney function, smoking habits, alcohol consumption, and level of education.

Over an average follow-up period of about six years, the study recorded 3,863 deaths among the participants. The findings were interesting.

1. Both the average and maximum levels of perceived temperature were associated with an increased risk of death among people with CKD.

2. Perceived temperature was a better predictor of mortality risk than simply looking at air temperature, discomfort index, or heat index.

3. Younger patients under 65 years of age faced a higher risk of mortality related to high perceived temperatures than their older peers did.

4. The risk of death was significantly higher during the winter and spring months compared to summer and autumn.

This last finding is particularly interesting. It might mean that high perceived temperatures during the summer have lingering effects into the colder seasons.

Or it might indicate that the human body needs colder seasons, which are now becoming too hot, to alternate with the hot ones to be truly healthy.

What does all this mean for people with CKD? Are you simply going to have to accept an early death just because you can’t stop climate change?

Not at all. In fact, it’s pretty good news. Since the perceived temperature is more important than the real one, all you need to do is to take extra precautions during hot weather.

This could mean staying hydrated, seeking air-conditioned environments, taking a cool shower, applying a cool, wet cloth to your forehead and neck, removing tight clothing, and being mindful of your body’s signals for overheating.

In chronological order, these signals are heavy sweating, headaches, fatigue, dizziness, muscle cramps, nausea, vomiting, dry skin, rapid and weak pulse, shallow breathing, and disorientation.

Best of all, there is a simple all-natural way to reverse CKD – all you need to do is following the easy baby steps rolled out here…