The University of Vermont Medical Center HealthSource blog is your leading source for articles on kidney news, information and health tips from industry experts. Read through a collection of kidney articles on a variety of subjects such as dialysis, kidney stones, organ donation and kidney transplants. The HealthSource blog features an array of regular authors and contributors from the medical world including doctors, nurse practitioners and healthcare executives.
Kidney stones occur in 1/11 people during a lifetime. The number of people forming stones has doubled in the past 15 years. A person who has had a kidney stone has a 50 percent chance of forming another stone over 5-10 years. The good news is that for many people, another kidney stone can be […]
While there’s a lot of focus on healthy eating, it is equally wise to pay attention to healthy pooping. Constipation is the most common gastrointestinal problems in the United States. Approximately 42 million Americans are suffering from it. What are the signs of constipation? You might be constipated if you eliminate less than three times […]
Dr. Marios Prikis, medical director of transplant at the UVM Medical Center and Rich Padula, manager of transplant services at the UVM Medical Center discuss the many ways in which lives are saved by organ donation and what they do to make the process as easy as possible for those on the waiting list. Listen […]
I made the decision to be an organ donor by donating a kidney to my sister as soon as I received the news her kidneys were failing. I think for some people the question to donate is this easy: There simply is no question. My sister was facing a lifetime of dialysis or worse – […]
Our kidneys work hard every day to get rid of waste products such as water, acids, potassium, and other things, which keeps us healthy. Sometimes the kidneys can get so damaged that they can no longer meet the needs of the body. People can suffer from kidney disease or even kidney failure. At this point […]
Four years ago at the age of 46, I “crash landed” into kidney disease. A visit to the doctor for what seemed like flu symptoms led me to the hospital and a diagnosis of Goodpasture’s Syndrome (a rare autoimmune disease in which antibodies attack the lungs and kidneys). It was the beginning of a long, tiring, […]
The Role of the kidneys The kidneys play a critical role in the proper functioning of our body by carrying out many important tasks. These are the maintenance of body composition, removal of metabolic end products and foreign substances, production and secretion of enzymes and hormones that are involved in blood pressure control, blood production […]
There are a number of dialysis choices available to patients at the UVM Medical Center. Varun Agrawal, MD, blogged about home dialysis earlier this month. In addition to peritoneal dialysis, home hemodialysis, and in-center hemodialysis, other choices for treatment of kidney failure include kidney transplant and medical management of symptoms. All of these choices are […]
March is National Kidney Month. To help you understand therapies for kidney failure, Varun Agrawal, MD, nephrologist and assistant professor of medicine, explains home dialysis services that are offered by the University of Vermont Medical Center – and why it may be a great option for patients and families to consider. What is dialysis? Is […]
High blood pressure, clinically known as hypertension, affects nearly 75 million adults in the United States and 1 billion people globally. Although one-third of adults in the United States are affected, only half of them have their blood pressure controlled. That has significant costs, both in terms of health and economics. The estimated economic burden […]
