Why You Need Your Kidneys Video Transcript

Webcast Transcript

LEONARD STERN, MD: Another way of thinking about it is every time the heart beats, 20 percent of the blood flow goes directly to the kidney, so it receives more blood flow than any other organ in the body.

LISA CLARK: I guess that would lead to a reason why high blood pressure, then, is so damaging to the kidneys, because there's already a tremendous amount of force of blood going through the kidney system.

LEONARD STERN, MD: That could be one possibility. High blood pressure can be a cause of kidney disease, or a result from kidney disease, because many disorders of the kidney, as part of their features and their presentation, are related to blood pressure elevation. But the concept that high blood pressure damages blood vessels so that the cardiac output can't get to the kidney and the kidneys lose their ability to act as a regulatory organ, and as the kidney fails, the function of the kidney fails and we retain waste products. The hormone function deteriorates, the vitamin D levels go down, the erythropoietin levels go down, and the patients develop a progressive syndrome which we call uremia.

LISA CLARK: So it's really hard to underestimate the impact that kidney health has on the function of the entire body.

LEONARD STERN, MD: The kidney is the main organ to regulate the internal homeostasis, so the balance state of all of our chemicals, whatever we eat, has to be modified by our metabolic process, and the waste products are excreted in the kidney. Without the function of the kidney, we couldn't regulate the levels of electrolytes and hormones and fluid balance. We would be like a fish out of water.

LISA CLARK: Exactly so. Well, I'd like to thank you both for joining us tonight, Len and Jai, for giving us and overview of how the kidneys function in the body. We appreciate you being here, and we appreciate you joining us for our webcast. Thanks. I'm Lisa Clark.

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