Even if you have a chronic disease, exercise remains a critical aspect of your natural health. Here is a fresh, new batch of health advice that focuses on those who suffer long-term kidney disease. Researchers found that regular exercise improves their health. So get your sneakers on!
There are many reasons why people with chronic kidney disease (CKD) often lose fitness and have trouble with normal daily tasks. But there is now scientific evidence that exercise benefits CKD patients — even post-kidney transplant. They can improve their physical fitness, walk further, and have healthier blood pressures, healthier heart rates, higher health-related quality of life scores and better nutrition than those who don’t exercise.
CKD, a global issue, occurs if the kidneys are damaged or underperforming for more than three months. Causes include high blood pressure, diabetes, and rheumatic diseases. One issue is that a CKD sufferer’s muscles tire easily, reducing exercise ability.
Over 30 years, many studies have addressed how exercise affects CKD patients. But still there remain more questions than answers. To fill the gap, a new study looked at 45 past studies, involving 1,863 people, to try and gauge the overall picture.
The researchers found that adults with CKD who don’t yet need dialysis, patients on dialysis, and kidney transplant recipients all had benefits from exercise. As well, different types of exercise produced different benefits.
For example, people who did high-intensity, cardiovascular training for four to six months had significantly improved aerobic capacity. Others showed that three months of regular, high-intensity resistance training or yoga increased muscular strength. And when supervised, the high intensity resistance training also increases walking capacity over three months.
They hope their results, and future studies, will help kidney doctors prescribe exercise training more often — and help them decide the best type of exercise for each patient. What they need to find out now is what effects resistance training or mixed cardiovascular and resistance training have on CKD patients. Whatever the case, if you suffer kidney disease, do not despair. Work a little fitness into your life (with your doctor’s guidance, of course).
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