Aug 25, 2020
A nephrologist for over 35
years, Vivek Jha discusses kidney function and disease treatments
like dialysis and kidney transplantation.
He helps listeners understand
- Ties between kidney function and most other organ systems,
- Differences between acute and chronic kidney disease, and
- Efforts towards bringing disadvantaged communities the best in kidney disease treatments.
Vivekanand Jha is Executive
Director at The George Institute for Global Health, India; Chair of
Global Kidney Health, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College of
London; and President of the International Society of Nephrology.
In this podcast he covers the basics of kidney function, kidney
disease, and late-stage efforts like
dialysis treatment.
He accompanies all these issues with an eye to the global
inequalities in effective treatment and discusses ways to educate
populations and bring better medicine to all. In fact, he tells
listeners that he became a nephrologist partly because of these
inequalities. He also describes why the biology intrigued him:
kidney function presents a "microcosm of internalized medicine." In
other words, the kidney affects all other organs and, as a doctor,
one utilizes every element of internalized medicine to address
kidney issues.
He describes the complex and
essential nature of kidney functions, from filtration, adaptability
to different solutes, hormone production, and the biology behind
these jobs such as nephrons function. He teaches listeners about
the back and forth between kidneys and blood pressure control and
talks about how early stage kidney disease is usually
symptomless.
He advises listeners on which tests to seek out regularly for those
at risk and touches on the goal of
dialysis treatment. Finally, he talks more about the necessity
for policy changes by governments in addressing health disparities
in a holistic manner.
For more about global kidney
health, see the International Society of Nephrology website,
theisn.org, and for more about his team's research, see
his page at The George Institute for Global Health:
georgeinstitute.org/people/vivekanand-jha.
Available on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/2Os0myK