Kidney Failure

Evaluating Risk Factors: Kidney Failure

Evaluating your likely current (and near future) state of health means taking into account the risk factors — such as kidney failure — that affect you. Our medical diagnosis tool, The Analyst™, identifies major risk factors by asking the right questions.

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In the Urinary Symptoms section of the questionnaire, The Analyst™ will ask the following question about kidney failure:

Do you have any degree of Chronic Renal Insufficiency or Kidney Failure?

Possible responses:

→ Don't know
→ No, definitely not (confirmed)
→ Chronic Renal Insufficiency
→ Chronic Renal Failure - not on dialysis yet
→ End-Stage Renal Disease - on dialysis

The Diagnostic Process

Based on your response to this question, which may indicate absence of renal insufficiency, chronic renal insufficiency or kidney failure, The Analyst™ will use differential diagnosis to consider possibilities such as:

Magnesium Toxicity

High levels of magnesium can develop in patients with kidney failure and in elderly people whose kidney functions are reduced. This is especially true when supplementing with magnesium. Kidney disease, rather than diet, is the usual cause of magnesium overload, because the kidneys lose the ability to remove excess magnesium.

Anemia

Anemia is almost always present in cases of chronic renal failure, and can occur through any of the basic mechanisms (blood loss, excessive destruction of red blood cells, or low production of red blood cells.) However, the typical anemia associated with CRF results from decreased production of red blood cells by the bone marrow: failing kidneys no longer produce sufficient erythropoietin, a hormone that stimulates the production of oxygen-carrying red blood cells (RBCs). In addition to decreased levels of RBCs, patients often begin to accumulate toxic metabolites, which shorten the lifespan of existing RBCs.

Ascites

Gout / Hyperuricemia

Patients with impaired renal function filter and excrete less uric acid and therefore become hyperuricemic. Interestingly, patients with renal failure do not develop gout as frequently as expected, despite their high plasma urate levels. The explanation for this phenomenon may be that they have not incurred sustained hyperuricemia levels long enough to develop gout. Only 1% of renal failure patients develop gout but nearly 30% of patients with adult polycystic kidney disease do.

Uremia

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