How to Manage Anemia in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD)

For the patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), they often feel and have shortness of breath, rapid heartbeat, and dizziness and so on. In fact, anemia is the main complaint of these symptoms. If untreated, anemia can affect the patients’ life quality seriously and even cause heart disease and death. Therefore, it is very important for the patients with Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) to mange the anemia effectively.

Firstly, it is essential for us to know how anemia occurs in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD).

Kidneys are very important organs in body. Besides filtering blood, they also can produce the hormone erythropoietin (EPO) that can stimulate bone narrow to produce red blood cells. However, in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), the diseased kidneys can not produce enough erythropoietin, therefore, not as many red blood cells are made thus leading to anemia.

Another cause of anemia in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) is iron insufficiency. Iron is the essential raw material of human blood and it is needed to make red blood cells. However, in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), the patients usually experience vomiting, nausea and poor appetite, which can lead to the lack of iron-rich foods intake like red meat, green leafy vegetables and so on. In addition, infection, inflammation or red blood cells through hemodialysis also can cause iron insufficiency.

To mange anemia in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD), the patients should adjust their daily diet and increase the iron-rich foods intake so as to increase the raw materials of blood. Another way to manage anemia is applying erythropoiesis-stimulating agents (ESAs) to stimulate the formation and production of red blood cells.

However, those two approaches can not improve the anemia in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) from the underlying cause because they can not recover the normal renal function to excrete erythropoietin.

Therefore, to treat anemia fundamentally, it is the key to recovering the normal renal function and restoring the impaired kidneys.


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