In the DC area, there are 26 million adults that have Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). CKD is when your kidneys are working at reduced level. Many times, people do not feel CKD symptoms until it is too late. If your kidney function worsens severely, a individual can hae an utimely death.
CKD is the 9th leading cause of death in this country. Unfortunately, alot of people are unaware that they have CKD. In fact, Washington D.C. has the most widespread amount of CKD in the entire United States. This large burden of kidney disease is due to diabetes and hypertension and nearly half of African Americans in this area have at leadt one of these risk factors.
If these risk factors and CKD are not addressed early, then unsuspecting patients especially people of color will end up on dialysis. African Americans are 3 times more likley to experience kidney failure. African Americans constitute more than 35% of all patients in the U.S. receiving dialysis for kideny failure, but only represent 13.2% of the overall U.S. population.
We at Metro Renal Associates recommend getting your blood work and urine checked yearly to ensure you have stable kidney function especially if you have a risk factor of diabetes, high blood pressure, a family history of kidney failure and being age 60 or older.
