World Kidney Day: 40% of kidney transplant patients at Apollo are young adults

New Delhi: As we observed World Kidney Day on 11^th March, reports suggest that more and more youngsters are being diagnosed with end-stage renal problems. The silent disease is increasingly being reported in younger adults below the age of 30 years. Experts at Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals have registered a spike in cases of younger people being diagnosed with chronic kidney diseases and end-stage kidney problems.

Dr Sundeep Guleria, Senior Consultant, Renal Transplant Surgeon, Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals, said, “It can be difficult to identify symptoms of chronic kidney diseases in its early stages due to varied symptoms that often go untreated. Also, the symptoms are not very specific, they can either be caused due to an underlying illness like blood pressure or diabetes. Hence most of the time kidney-related ailments are asymptomatic and go undetected”.

More so, increasingly people who are young and in the prime of their health are reporting renal failure. This can be due to polycystic kidney syndrome which is an inherited kidney disease that can lead to renal failure, subsequently requiring transplant, or delayed treatment for underlying conditions like diabetes and blood pressure.  Hence over 60% of young kidney patients are diagnosed only at the end stage of kidney-related ailments when organ transplant or dialysis are the only options left.

Sanjiv Jasuja, Senior Consultant, Nephrology, Indraprastha Apollo hospital, said, “Majority of these cases have been that of uncontrolled diabetes or hypertension. One in three people in India have hypertension or high blood pressure and more than 60% don’t know they have it. Of the people who know, only 50% end up taking their medicines.”

With youngsters following a lifestyle that is more sedentary and stressful more and more younger adults have developed problems of high blood pressure which initially used to be just a disease of the elderly. This is alarming as fluctuating blood pressures can be life-threatening for the kidney’s health.