When Chronic Kidney Disease Drugs Kill

Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.

And that seems to be the case with many chronic kidney disease mediations according to a new study from the Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Even worse, the side effects become more and more severe the longer that people took the medications. Doctors tend to prescribe chronic medications for chronic conditions, which is unfortunate because the harmful effects of drugs tend to be cumulative, i.e., they increase in quantity or degree the longer that patients take the drug.

And some of the side effects even include kidney failure and death.

The most common medications prescribed for chronic kidney disease are renin–angiotensin system inhibitors, antithrombotic agents, and diuretics.

The first of these interferes with the system that controls blood pressure and fluid and electrolyte balance, the second reduces the formation of blood clots, and the third increases the amount of water and salt patients excrete in the form of urine.

The subjects of the new study all had non-dialysis chronic kidney disease; 65 percent of them were male, and the average age was 69. They all had an estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) of less than 60 mL/min/1.73 m2 (milliliter per minute per square meter). The researchers obtained their data from the Chronic Kidney Disease-Renal Epidemiology and Information Network.

Over just two years, 536—18 percent—of these subjects experienced 751 negative drug reactions, with 150 of these serious and 16 of them fatal.

The scientists obtained details of the negative drug reactions from hospitalization records, complete medical records, and participant interviews. They could then calculate whether these consequences stemmed directly or indirectly from the drugs.

Two-thirds of these negative reactions were renal and urinary problems, especially acute kidney injury and hemorrhages. It’s ironic when drugs for kidney disease actually cause kidney damage.

Problems in the gastrointestinal, muscular, skeletal, and connective tissue systems were also fairly common.

Incredibly, the patients were prescribed an average of 8 different drugs, with some of the patients receiving more than 12.

Those with an eGFR of less than 30 mL/min/1.73 m2 were 56 and 82 percent more likely than the rest of the study population was to suffer negative or serious negative reactions, respectively.

Compared with those who took five or fewer drugs, those prescribed more than 10 drugs were 1.6 times more likely to suffer negative reactions and 2.1 times more likely to suffer serious negative reactions.

Therefore, although they seem to be simple solutions to serious health problems, remember that drugs cause their own problems that can, as in 16 of these cases, be deadly.

A better option is to treat your kidneys naturally using simple lifestyle changes explained here…