Part of the book: Special Problems in Hemodialysis Patients
Part of the book: From Preconception to Postpartum
Anemia is a common complication of chronic kidney disease (CKD) associated with disease progression and increased mortality. This anemia is mainly due to inadequate production of erythropoietin (EPO) by the failing kidneys, resulting from the reduction in renal EPO‐producing cells (REPC) or from dysregulation of the hypoxia‐inducible factor (HIF) system that regulates several genes related to hypoxia, angiogenesis, fibrosis and glucose metabolism, among others. In this chapter, we present a review on the HIF system in CKD‐anemia, the HIF response to erythropoiesis‐stimulating agents (ESA) therapy and its potential involvement in the development of ESA resistance by enhancing kidney fibrosis and inflammation. Due to concerns related to ESA use, new drugs to correct anemia are under study, being the prolyl hydroxylase inhibitors the most promising candidates.
Part of the book: Hypoxia and Human Diseases
Paediatric obesity has significant physic, social and psychological implications. Childhood obesity is usually associated in adulthood with increased risk of type 2 diabetes, metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular diseases. Aggregation of cardiometabolic risk factors is already observed at young ages, with a nonlinear association with enhancement of adiposity. Adiponectin is an adipokine that inhibits inflammation, oxidative stress and metabolic syndrome components, namely dyslipidaemia, high blood pressure and insulin resistance. Obesity has been associated with hypoadiponectinaemia in both adult and paediatric patients, which may contribute to co‐morbidities observed in these patients. Interventional studies that aim to tackle obesity reported controversial results. Although the general positive effect on weight loss, inflammatory and cardiometabolic markers has been studied, the impact of these interventional studies on adiponectin remains unclear. Some studies reported that the improvement in adiponectin might only occur in paediatric obese patients with great weight loss or intensive physical exercise; the magnitude of the changes in body composition appears to be of particular importance. A revision about the knowledge on the relation between adiponectin, inflammation and cardiometabolic risk factors in paediatric patients is performed; the impact of interventional studies on adiponectin levels and markers of cardiometabolic risk is also addressed.
Part of the book: Adiposity
End-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients present high incidence of cardiovascular (CV) events, which are the most common causes of death in these patients. The occurrence of CV events appears as a consequence of the high prevalence of traditional and non-traditional CV risk factors. Online-hemodiafiltration (OL-HDF) was introduced as a better alternative to conventional dialysis, as it was proposed to be more biocompatible, to increase dialysis efficacy, to reduce the inflammatory response to treatment and to improve patient’s quality of life, contributing to reduce CV and all-cause mortality risk in ESRD. However, data in literature, comparing the effect of OL-HDF with conventional dialysis for clinical CV outcome and all-cause mortality, yielded controversy about those benefits of OL-HFD over standard hemodialysis. A review of the traditional CV risk factors (e.g., arterial hypertension, diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, obesity, smoking and advanced age), non-traditional risk factors (e.g., anemia, oxidative stress, hyperphosphatemia, endothelial dysfunction, left ventricular hypertrophy, insulin resistance, high levels of lipoprotein(a) and inflammation) and potential renocardiovascular biomarkers, in the setting of ESRD, is presented. The impact of conventional hemodialysis and OL-HDF on CV risk factors and on the outcome of ESRD patients is also addressed.
Part of the book: Aspects in Dialysis