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Healthy heart ensures healthy kidney

Scientists have shown that a lifestyle that encourages a healthy heart could also shield patients with chronic kidney diseases from kidney failure and premature death, says a study.

The findings, appearing in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology (JASN), suggest that patients with kidney diseases should be encouraged to improve their heart’s health, reports Science Daily.

Poor kidney health puts people at risk of developing heart problems. But it’s unclear whether the opposite is true. Does heart health also affect kidney health?

To investigate this, Paul Muntner, a researcher from the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and colleagues used the American Heart Association’s recently published tool (Life’s Simple 7) that helps individuals assess their heart health.

Life’s Simple 7 lists seven domains including not smoking, being physically active, following a heart healthy diet, having a normal weight, and maintaining low blood sugar, blood pressure, and cholesterol levels.

‘Scores on the Life’s Simple 7 tool have been associated with risk for having a heart attack but it was unclear whether a worse profile would be associated with an increased risk for developing kidney failure,’ said Muntner.