Caffeine consumption may help kidney disease patients live longer

In continuation of my update on caffeine..

Caffeine consumption may prolong the lives in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to a study that will be presented at ASN Kidney Week 2017 October 31-November 5 at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center in New Orleans, LA.  

Coffee consumption has been linked to a longer life in the general population. To see if this holds true for individuals with CKD, Miguel Bigotte Vieira, MD (Centro Hospitalar Lisboa Norte, in Portugal), and his colleagues examined the association of caffeine consumption with mortality among 2328 patients with CKD in a prospective US cohort, using the continuous National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(NHANES) 1999-2010.

The team found a dose-dependent inverse association between caffeine and all-cause mortality. Compared with those in the lowest quartile of caffeine consumption, those in the second, third, and highest quartiles had 12%, 22%, and 24% lower risks of dying.

"Our study showed a dose-dependent protective effect of caffeine consumption on mortality among patients with CKD. This association was independent of potential confounders including age, gender, race, annual family income, education level, estimated GFR, albumin/creatinine ratio, hypertension, smoking status, dyslipidemia, body mass index, previous cardiovascular events and diet: consumption of alcohol, carbohydrates, polyunsaturated fatty acids, and fibers," said Dr. Bigotte Vieira. 

"These results suggest that advising patients with CKD to drink more caffeine may reduce their mortality. This would represent a simple, clinically beneficial, and inexpensive option, though this benefit should ideally be confirmed in a randomized clinical trial." Dr. Bigotte Vieira stressed that this observational study cannot prove thatcaffeine reduces the risk of death in patients with CKD, but onlysuggests the possibility of such a protective effect.

Caffeine consumption may help kidney disease patients live longer

New high-throughput screening method may uncover novel treatments for kidney disease .

CKD affects more than 13% of adults in the United States, with diabetes, hypertension and atherosclerosis being common risk factors. Most patients rely on antihypertensive medications for treatment, and there are no therapies available that directly and specifically target the kidney.

A team led by Vineet Gupta, PhD and Jochen Reiser, MD, PhD (Rush University Medical Center) has now developed a system that can be used to identify novel drug candidates that protect the function of kidney podocytes, cells that are critical for filtering the blood. Damage to these cells is a hallmark of CKD.

"A key barrier to the rational development of podocyte-directed therapeutics has been a lack of cell-based assays for use in high-throughput drug discovery environment," said Dr. Gupta. "Our report describes what we believe to be the  first  podocyte  cell-based highcontent screening assay for the identification of novel podocyte-directed therapeutics in a high-throughput fashion."

Using the assay, which analyzes thousands of podocytes under different conditions in multi-well plates, the investigators identified 24 small molecules that protected podocytes against injury. When they treated mice and rats with one   of  the  molecules, called   pyrintegrin, the
animals' podocytes remained healthy despite being exposed to damaging agents.Pyrintegrin activates β1 integrin, a protein that acts as a molecular bridge to help podocytes hold onto the outside of blood vessels and maintain the filtration apparatus in the kidney.

"We believe that this assay could provide the much needed boost in fueling the discovery and development of kidney directed therapeutics, development of which has significantly lacked in recent times," said Dr. Reiser.

Ref : http://jasn.asnjournals.org/content/early/2015/04/09/ASN.2014090859

New high-throughput screening method may uncover novel treatments for kidney disease --