We are truly into winter and this time of year is the water element in traditional Chinese medicine, so of course the organs that correspond to this are the kidneys and bladder. For this newsletter I would like to focus on the kidneys, as they are one of our main detoxification centers, are about the size of your fist and sit in the back of your abdomen between the ribs and pelvis.

The kidneys have many functions, they filter toxins out of the blood and concentrate them to make urine.  Every day the kidneys filter about 180 litres of blood to produce about 2 litres of waste, they keep the body in homeostasis by regulating our water and electrolyte balance, acid base balance and fluid volume.  This process takes place in the nephrons which are a complicated system of tubules and blood vessels that carry out the filtering process, each kidney has around a million nephrons.  The tubules will send back to the body things that it still needs such as electrolytes like sodium, phosphorus and potassium.  The kidneys are key in maintaining the balance of these electrolytes and it takes chemicals out and concentrates it into urea which forms urine.

The kidneys also make three hormones – renin, erythropoietin and vitamin D.  Renin is key in regulating blood pressure, some blood pressure medication called ACE Inhibitors work through this pathway.  They also produce erythropoietin which stimulates the bone marrow to make red blood cells.  The last hormone is the active form of vitamin D which is important in our bone strength, immune system and energy levels.



The kidneys can easily be damaged, I describe them as cheese cloth, though they are much more complicated than that. If you put too much pressure through cheese cloth it starts to punch holes in it, letting larger particles through than you wanted. This is what occurs in the kidneys when you have prolonged high blood pressure which can start kidney failure.  Cheese cloth can also be punctured by crystals, an overload of sugar in our blood will form crystals which punch holes in the cheese cloth and allow protein to start leaking out, the early stages of kidney failure from diabetes.  Medications can also harm our kidneys and are either filtered through the liver or the kidneys like anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen, which is one of the biggest culprits of kidney damage.

You can take care of your kidneys by drinking plenty of water, this helps the kidney flushing process and dehydration can lead to the development of renal stones as well.  Keep your blood pressure in normal range to decrease the pressure on your kidneys.  Eat limited salt and I always recommend sea or Himalayan salt as it has more minerals than plain table salt which is just sodium and potassium.  Keep your blood sugars under control and of course you can do this by keeping your
sugar and simple carbohydrate intake to a minimum.

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