Kidneys passed around, like cookies on a plate? This grim specter is one step closer.
In a rather sensational news story, it was revealed that U.S. doctors were involved in a case where a kidney transplanted into one patient had to be removed but was then successfully transplanted into another patient.
Well, “Waste not, want not,” is a well-known saying. But I think it’s far better to look after your kidneys in the first place.
There is a chronic shortage of kidneys for transplanting. Dialysis, the other option for failed kidneys, is not so good. Dialysis patients rarely last more than about 5 years.
The unlucky patient in this groundbreaking case suffered with a disease called focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (FSGS). The disease causes kidney scar tissue. But just days after the transplant the new kidney showed signs of the same disease.
In what I think was a somewhat outrageous move, doctors took the transplant kidney out again and gave it to somebody else. I’m all for being economical with resources but the surgeons could not possibly have known that the disease would stop and not affect the second recipient.
In fact, all was well. The FSGS reversed in the second recipient. But it was taking a big chance.
What this tells us, of course, is that kidney damage due to FSGS in the first patient was really a systemic process. ANY kidney in that body was at risk. So it wasn’t really “kidney disease”, was it?
This is the hard lesson to get over to orthodox doctors: end-organ failure is just that… the organ that fails first. But disease is nearly always systemic. Or put another way: the patient’s diet and lifestyle was the disease; the kidney was just collateral damage!
Look after your kidneys: get my book “The Waters Of Life”, which tells you how to look after your kidneys.
