Educational day spreads knowledge about preventing kidney disease
A large group of Hatters gathered into the Higdon Hall Cactus Room at the Stampede Grounds Saturday to learn a little bit more about their kidneys.
The event was Kidney Education Day, and was held by the Kidney Foundation of Canada. Executive director for the southern Alberta and Saskatchewan branches of the foundation, Joyce Van Deurzen, said the day is all about spreading knowledge.
“We really feel that spreading education and awareness on kidney disease and health is the key to stopping kidney-related health problems,” she said. ‘We want to show people key details about kidney disease and how we can work to prevent it from happening, or if it’s too late, slowing it down.”
The educational event ran for a few hours and featured speakers who are experts on the kidneys, as well as a station to get blood pressure checked.
Van Deurzen said monitoring certain parts of your health as you get older is important to prevent kidney disease from sneaking up.
“One of the biggest problems with kidney disease is that it is a silent one,” she said. “Most people do not know that they have the disease, until they have kidney failure. Holding events like this really helps us spread to people how to take care of themselves, and their kidneys.”
Van Deurzen says there’s two main triggers for kidney disease and kidney failure.
“Poorly managed diabetes and high blood pressure really can impact the kidneys in a very, very bad way,” she said. “Right now there is no cure for kidney disease, so preventing the disease and slowing it down are really what we’re working with. Taking care of yourself and limiting the amount of salt you take in on any given day are really important.”
According to Van Deurzen one in every 10 Canadians has kidney disease and millions more are at risk.
“The kidneys aren’t something people really think about until something goes wrong. We’re here to change that.”