Hello and welcome to the Zero to Finals podcast. My name is Tom and in this episode I'm going to be

talking to you about chronic kidney disease. And if you want to follow along with written notes on

this topic, you can follow along at zero tofinals.com slash cKD or in the renal section of the zero to finals medicine book.

So let's get straight into it.

Chronic kidney disease describes a chronic reduction in kidney function.

This is a sustained reduction, not just a single one-off abnormal results,

but a reduction in the kidney function over time.

This reduction in kidney function tends to be permanent and progressive.

So what are the causes of chronic kidney disease or a chronic reduction in kidney function?

The key cause is diabetes.

Other causes are hypertension, age-related decline, so your kidneys will

gradually get slower as time goes on and you get older, glomerular nephritis, polycystic kidney

disease, and certain medications can cause a reduction in kidney function such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or ensades,

like ibuprofen, on a proxin, chronic use of proton pump inhibitors like ameprosol or lanzoprosol,

and a medication used in psychiatry called lithium.

So what are the risk factors for chronic kidney disease? Well,

the key risk factor is older age. Other risk factors are chronic conditions like hypertension,

diabetes, people who smoke cigarettes, and the use of medications that affect the kidneys long term.

So how does chronic kidney disease present?

Well, usually chronic kidney disease is asymptomatic, so they don't have any symptoms,

and the decline in kidney function is diagnosed on routine testing of the kidney function.

A number of signs and symptoms might suggest chronic kidney disease, and these are things like

...