Is it Important to Prevent and Treat Protein-Energy Wasting in Chronic Kidney Disease and Chronic Dialysis Patients?

Protein-energy wasting (PEW), which essentially refers to decreased body protein mass and fuel (energy) reserves, is common in advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients and end-stage kidney disease patients undergoing chronic dialysis. The term PEW is used rather than protein-energy malnutrition because many causes of PEW in CKD and end-stage kidney disease patients does not involve reduced nutrient intake (e.g., catabolic illness, oxidants, biologicals lost in urine and dialysate, acidemia). The prevalence of PEW in CKD increases as glomerular filtration rate declines and is highest in chronic dialysis patients. PEW in CKD is important because it is associated with substantially increased morbidity and mortality and reduced quality of life. Many signs of PEW can be improved with nutritional therapy. It is not known whether amelioration or eradication of PEW by treatment of underlying illnesses, nutritional therapy, and/or other measures will reduce morbidity and mortality or improve quality of life. Clinical trials are indicated to answer these questions.

Is There a Role for Diaphoresis Therapy for Advanced Chronic Kidney Disease Patients?

Diaphoresis therapy to remove water and solutes for the treatment of advanced chronic kidney disease (CKD) and chronic dialysis patients is an inadequately characterized treatment that was first reported over 50 years ago. Intensive diaphoresis, induced by heat treatment with saunas (dry heat) or hot baths (wet heat), can substantially increase cutaneous losses of water, urea, sodium, potassium, chloride, lactate, and possibly other solutes. How effectively diaphoresis therapy might remove many uremic toxins is not known. Diaphoresis therapy is not sufficiently effective to replace dialysis treatments, but theoretically it might be used to delay the start of chronic dialysis, supplement infrequent dialysis therapy, or augment chronic dialysis treatment perhaps especially for dialysis patients with excessive salt and water intake. Diaphoresis might be helpful for managing edema resistant states. Because it is inexpensive, diaphoresis may be particularly valuable in lower income countries where some patients may need to pay for dialysis. Diaphoresis might enhance some aspects of dietary treatment. The short-term and long-term effectiveness, safety, and patient acceptance of diaphoretic therapy need to be more carefully investigated.

Cardiac Dysfunction Among People Living With HIV: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

OBJECTIVE: To synthesize existing epidemiological data on cardiac dysfunction in HIV. BACKGROUND: Data on the burden and risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection-associated cardiac dysfunction have not been adequately synthesized. We performed meta-analyses of extant literature on the frequency of several subtypes of cardiac dysfunction among people living with HIV. METHODS: We searched electronic databases and reference lists of review articles and combined the study-specific estimates using random-effects model meta-analyses. Heterogeneity was explored using subgroup analyses and meta-regressions. RESULTS: We included 63 reports from 54 studies comprising up to 125,382 adults with HIV infection and 12,655 cases of various cardiac dysfunctions. The pooled prevalence (95% confidence interval) was 12.3% (6.4% to 19.7%; 26 studies) for left ventricular systolic dysfunction (LVSD); 12.0% (7.6% to 17.2%; 17 studies) for dilated cardiomyopathy; 29.3% (22.6% to 36.5%; 20 studies) for grades I to III diastolic dysfunction; and 11.7% (8.5% to 15.3%; 11 studies) for grades II to III diastolic dysfunction. The pooled incidence and prevalence of clinical heart failure were 0.9 per 100 person-years (0.4 to 2.1 per 100 person-years; 4 studies) and 6.5% (4.4% to 9.6%; 8 studies), respectively. The combined prevalence of pulmonary hypertension and right ventricular dysfunction were 11.5% (5.5% to 19.2%; 14 studies) and 8.0% (5.2% to 11.2%; 10 studies), respectively. Significant heterogeneity was observed across studies for all the outcomes analyzed (I2 > 70%, p < 0.01), only partly explained by available study level characteristics. There was a trend for lower prevalence of LVSD in studies reporting higher antiretroviral therapy use or lower proportion of acquired immune deficiency syndrome. The prevalence of LVSD was higher in the African region. After taking into account the effect of regional variation, there was evidence of lower prevalence of LVSD in studies published more recently. CONCLUSIONS: Cardiac dysfunction is frequent in people living with HIV. Additional prospective studies are needed to better understand the burden and risk of various forms of cardiac dysfunction related to HIV and the associated mechanisms. (Cardiac dysfunction in people living with HIV-a systematic review and meta-analysis; CRD42018095374).

Current Uses of Dietary Therapy for Patients with Far-Advanced CKD.

For several decades, inquiry concerning dietary therapy for nondialyzed patients with CKD has focused mainly on its capability to retard progression of CKD. However, several studies published in recent years indicate that, independent of whether diet can delay progression of CKD, well designed low-protein diets may provide a number of benefits for people with advanced CKD who are close to requiring or actually in need of RRT. Dietary therapy may both maintain good nutritional status and safely delay the need for chronic dialysis in such patients, offering the possibility of improving quality of life and reducing health care costs. With the growing interest in incremental dialysis, dietary therapy may enable lower doses of dialysis to be safely and effectively used, even as GFR continues to decrease. Such combinations of dietary and incremental dialysis therapy might slow the rate of loss of residual GFR, possibly reduce mortality in patients with advanced CKD, improve quality of life, and also, reduce health care costs. The amount of evidence that supports these possibilities is limited, and more well designed, randomized clinical trials are clearly indicated.