High BP and Hypertension can Cause Kidney Disease.

World Kidney Day is celebrated on second Thursday of March each year. The main purpose to celebrate this occasion is to increase awareness among general population regarding kidney disease. Considering increasing number of kidney patients each day and considering cost and trauma faced by patients and their relatives especially in advance renal disease, its very prudent to prevention of kidney disease. And for this awareness is very important. As it is rightly said that prevention is better than cure, we need to understand an important aspect that prevention is in our hand but not the cure.

Hypertension – High BP:

Hypertension is the leading cause morbidity in general population. Almost 1 in 7 person in world is suffering from hypertension or its consequences. As our schedules are getting more and more complicated and stressful, the incidence of Hypertension is increasing.

Kidney disease and hypertension have a great relationship. They both can cause and consequences for each other. Means to say hypertension can cause kidney disease and vice versa. Hypertension is one of the most common cause of kidney disease and is most common consequence of kidney disease. So, it’s very important to understand the underlying pathology. In medical terms, hypertension can cause kidney disease by “Hypertensive Nephrosclerosis”.

Controlling hypertension is in your hands:

Since hypertension itself is a modifiable risk factor and so is the chronic kidney disease caused by it. It’s very important to control of blood pressure. This can be achieved by dietary modification especially low salt intake, regular exercise & yoga, avoidance of intake of alcohol, smoking and tobacco products, stress free life and in last resort intake of anti hypertensive medications. Choice of anti hypertensive may differ according to patients profile but main aim should be to control of BP. Even degree of BP control is also differ in different sub group.

As our blood pressure control is good we can either reduce the rate of progression of kidney disease or altogether can avoid this deadly consequence of hypertension.