Chronic Renal Disease: Orthomolecular Ramifications

Introduction Increasingly, human kidneys are under assault from environmental toxins as well as an array of diseases that place them at risk of ultimately failing. Eleven percent of American adults now show evidence of chronic kidney disease, with over 400,000 afflicted with end-stage kidney disease. Over a third of those cases are caused by diabetes, and the remainder by high blood pressure and other conditions, including genetic ones. Diabetes is epidemic, spurred in part by changing eating patterns and obesity. It currently kills more people than AIDS. The epidemic will worsen. The World Health Organization and the International Diabetes Foundation have predicted that by the year 2030, more than twice as many people worldwide will suffer from this devastating disease as now do.