Health & Medicine

Physical Weakness May Be An Early Sign Of Kidney Failure

Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Oct 30, 2014 06:43 PM EDT

Physical weakness can be an early predictor of kidney failure, in some patients.

Recent findings published in the American Journal of Transplantation revealed that even after accounting for numerous factors such as age and weight, research suggests that frailty can be a crucial sign in determining the risks of this potential health problem.

For the study, researchers examined data on 537 kidney transplant recipients at the time of transplantation. Results showed that around 91.5 percent of non-frail ercipients, 86 percent of intermediately frail recipients and 77.5 percent of the frail recipients survived five years following operation.

The research is particularly important as this information can help researchers determine what to look for in the future.

"Our results suggest that frail kidney transplant recipients are at twice the risk of mortality even after accounting for important recipient, transplant, and donor characteristics," said lead study author Mara McAdams-DeMarco, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health and School of Medicine, in a news release. "Our findings are important because frailty represents a unique domain of mortality risk that is not captured by recipient, transplant, or donor factors like recipient age, recipient comorbidity, or donor type, for example," she concluded.

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