Kidney disease linked to poverty

from The Daily Breeze

By Melissa Evans

Younger black people with chronic kidney disease are at a much greater risk of death than white people of the same age - but the difference has nothing to do with biology, according to a study being published next month by local researchers.

Blacks under the age of 65 had a 78 percent higher risk of death than whites, largely due to lack of access to health care and other socioeconomic factors, Dr. Rajinish Mehrotra of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute reported in his study.

The findings show that poverty, lack of insurance and lower education rates may contribute to higher mortality, he said.

"Addressing these factors could improve survival rates of blacks in the early stage of kidney disease," Mehrotra said.

Mehrotra and other colleagues at the Torrance-area research facility began the study after noticing that survival rates among blacks and Latinos with kidney disease were actually far better than whites in later stages of the disease when dialysis is required.

After looking at data from 14,611 patients of all races - 2,892 of whom had chronic kidney disease - the researchers discovered this is likely due to the fact that far more blacks are dying in the early stages of the disease, which means only the healthiest people are living into the final stage.

Latino patients also had a higher risk for death than whites in early stages of the disease, but it was not statistically significant, according to the study.

The study, called "Racial Differences in Mortality Among Those with CKD," will appear in the July issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. The research was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health.