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Kidney Failure Essay

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Introduction There is a pair of kidneys in the human body. They are situated towards the back of the body under the ribs, just at the level of the waist where one on either side of the body. Each kidney is composed of about one million units which are called nephrons and each nephron consists of two parts: a filter which is called the glomerulus and a tubule leading out from the nephron (Cameron 1999). According to Marshall and Bangert (2008) the kidneys have three major functions. Firstly, the kidneys are excretion of waste from plasma in the blood. The second function is that, they maintain of extracellular fluid volume and composition. Lastly, the kidneys have a role in hormone synthesis.
Renal Failure The renal …show more content…

However, when the kidneys stop working completely, this situation is known as end-stage renal failure (ESRF). There are some diseases may cause chronic renal failure and this essay will focus on two types of these common diseases.

Diabetes Mellitus One of the diseases is diabetes mellitus which is a major cause of renal failure. This disease can be defined as an increase of fasting blood glucose that is affected by a deficiency in insulin hormone. The normal range for glucose (fasting) in the blood is 2.8-6.0 mmol/L. It is classified into two groups, type 1 (insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus) and type 2 (non insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus). Stein (2008, p.6) points out that kidney failure happens most often when patients have suffered from diabetes mellitus for more than 10 years. According to United States Renal Data System (USRDS) report in 2007, approximately 44% of primary causes of renal failure is diabetes mellitus in the United States in 2005. Also, Stein (2008) indicates that 15% of dialysis patients are influenced by diabetes mellitus in the United Kingdom. Diabetes mellitus has negative affects throughout the kidneys where the increase of the range of blood sugar causes the damages to the cells in the kidneys. This leads to the presence of the glucose in the urine which is known as glycosuric.
Hypertension
High blood pressure which is called hypertension is another common disease which can cause chronic renal failure. This

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