A
Consultant Urologist with the Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, New Delhi, India,
Dr. Narasimhan Subramanian, has said that drinking three or four litres of
water every day can prevent the formation of kidney stones.
A
kidney stone is a hard, crystalline mineral material formed within the kidney
or urinary tract. Kidney stones are a common cause of blood in the urine
(hematuria) and often severe pain in the abdomen, flank, or groin. Kidney
stones are sometimes called renal calculi.
The
condition of having kidney stones is termed nephrolithiasis. Having stones at
any location in the urinary tract is referred to as urolithiasis, and the term
ureterolithiasis is used to refer to stones located in the ureters.
Subramanian
also linked the disease to untreated infectious diseases such as diabetes and
hypertension, adding that early diagnosis and proper treatments of such
conditions would prevent the disorder
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The
urologist identified abuse of painkillers as a factor to increasing the
incidence of kidney failure among adults and maintained that unhealthy habits
such as smoking and indiscriminate consumption of alcohol may lead to kidney
failure.
In
his lecture titled; “Current Practices in Prostate Diseases”, Subramanian
described urology as the branch of medicine which primarily deals with all
urine, kidney and reproductive organs-related problems said there is need for
early diagnosis and recognition of infections in the kidney as well as
hypertension, diabetes and their associated conditions
He
stated, “When you address all these, you will certainly reduce the incidences
of kidney related medical problems.In the case of kidney diseases, you are
talking about four common conditions; kidney stones, infections in the kidneys,
kidney failures and cancers of the kidneys.”
He
explained that to reduce chances of stone formation, individuals need to drink
a lot of water, at least, three or more litres of water every day.
Subramanian
noted, “Similarly, once you have formed the stone, there are different types of
stones which may require different dietary restrictions and some of them may
even require certain medications to reduce the formation of stones.
“The
basic mechanisms by which stones are formed, there are salts that are present
in the body and when the concentration of the salts becomes more in the kidney
that is when stones are formed. So if you dilute these by forming more urine it
gets washed off the system and reducing this stone formation,” he added.
He
spoke at a five –day boot camp organised by Apollo Hospitals, India in
collaboration with the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital.
On
infections in the kidney, Subramanian said many urinary infections do not
necessarily affect the kidneys but if these infections are untreated or are associated
with medical conditions that are not quickly diagnosed, they can affect the
kidney.
“Coming
to the issue of kidney failure, what you would need is early diagnosis and
recognition of infections in the kidney.”
Subramanian
further explained that the boot camp which attracts Continuous Medical
Education marks was to highlight segments of development in urology which would
make patient care easier either in terms of diagnosing the condition early or
introducing treatments which are less invasive with a view to reducing the pain
and the duration of hospitalisation among others.
He
stated that the new advances in terms of the blood tests and scans in the
treatment of the condition have made diagnosis easier to understand and treat.
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