Lift for longevity: weight may help kidney patients

Lift for longevity: weight may help kidney patients

Results of a new study suggest that when it comes to the longevity of kidney disease patient’s, buffer is better.

Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh MD, PhD of Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and his colleagues examined the effects of lean and fat mass on almost 800 Kidney disease patients who are on dialysis. Over a five year period they measured the patients mid-arm muscle circumference.

The researchers found that patients with a higher mid arm muscle circumference fared significantly better on mental health test and lived longer than patients with a low mid-arm muscle circumference. Patients with the lowest mid-arm muscle circumference were 37 percent more likely to die during the study period than patients with the highest circumference.

Study author Dr Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh said ‘it is possible that interventions that can improve muscle mass or increase lean body mass can lead to better clinical outcomes and greater survival in tens of thousands of dialysis patients and probably millions of individuals with other stages of chronic kidney disease or other chronic disease states’.

Source: Clinical Journal of the American Society of Nephrology

‹ Back