What Causes Chronic Kidney Disease?

The two main causes of chronic kidney disease are diabetes and high blood pressure, which are responsible for up to two-thirds of the cases. Diabetes happens when your blood sugar is too high, causing damage to many organs in your body, including the kidneys and heart, as well as blood vessels, nerves and eyes. High blood pressure, or hypertension, occurs when the pressure of your blood against the walls of your blood vessels increases. If uncontrolled, or poorly controlled, high blood pressure can be a leading cause of heart attacks, strokes and chronic kidney disease. Also, chronic kidney disease can cause high blood pressure.

Other conditions that affect the kidneys are:
Glomerulonephritis, a group of diseases that cause inflammation and damage to the kidney's filtering units. These disorders are the third most common type of kidney disease.
Inherited diseases, such as polycystic kidney disease, which causes large cysts to form in the kidneys and damage the surrounding tissue.
Malformations that occur as a baby develops in its mother's womb. For example, a narrowing may occur that prevents normal outflow of urine and causes urine to flow back up to the kidney. This causes infections and may damage the kidneys.
Lupus and other diseases that affect the body's immune system.
Obstructions caused by problems like kidney stones, tumors or an enlarged prostate gland in men.
Repeated urinary infections.
Chronic kidney failure, also known as chronic renal failure, chronic renal disease, or chronic kidney disease, is a slow progressive loss of kidney function over a period of several years. Eventually the patient has permanent kidney failure.Chronic kidney failure is much more common than people realize, and often goes undetected and undiagnosed until the disease is well advanced and kidney failure is fairly imminent. It is not unusual for people to realize they have chronic kidney failure only when their kidney function is down to 25% of normal.

As kidney failure advances and the organ's function is seriously impaired, dangerous levels of waste and fluid can rapidly build up in the body. Treatment is aimed at stopping or slowing down the progression of the disease - this is usually done by controlling its underlying cause.

If chronic kidney failure ends in end-stage kidney disease, the patient will not survive without dialysis (artificial filtering) or a kidney transplant.

According to the NHS (National Health Service), UK, approximately 1 to 4 in every 1,000 British people are affected by chronic kidney disease. The average age of a British person with the disease is 77. In the UK, health authorities report that people of South Asian, African and Afro-Caribbean descent are at a higher risk of developing the disease, compared to other people.