Kidney research, 2026-08-28
New research links diet, diabetes drugs, and mouth bacteria to kidney health—but none change daily care yet
Today's research updates focus on understanding links between kidney disease and other factors like diet, diabetes, and oral health. No new treatment results were found—most studies looked back at existing data or reviewed past work. These findings help scientists learn more about how kidney disease develops, but they don't change what people with stage 3 CKD should do today.
Factors Associated with Hyperkalemia in Chronic Kidney Disease: Insights from a Cohort with Measured Glomerular Filtration Rate.
In over 5,000 adults with kidney disease, higher potassium levels were linked to older age, female sex, lower kidney filtering rate (eGFR), and more protein in the urine — but this...
Sodium-glucose cotransporter-2 inhibitor use and clinical outcomes in patients with cirrhosis: a propensity-matched real-world cohort study.
In over 10,000 people with cirrhosis, those taking SGLT2 inhibitors (a common diabetes drug) were less likely to die or need a liver transplant over about two years. This study...
Association of GLP1-Receptor Agonists With Diabetic Retinopathy.
A study of over 100,000 people with diabetes found those taking GLP1-receptor agonists had a slightly lower risk of eye problems than those on another drug class, but because it is...
Efficacy of sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors after acute myocardial infarction: Are the benefits limited to patients with diabetes? A systematic review and meta-analysis.
A major review of 17 studies found SGLT2 inhibitors cut the risk of death or heart failure hospitalization after a heart attack by about 25% — benefits held true for patients with...
Epidemiological characteristics and factors associated with chronic kidney disease-associated pruritus in the Chinese adult dialysis population: a multicenter, cross-sectional study.
In over 9,500 Chinese dialysis patients, itching was linked to worse quality of life and higher depression scores — but because this is an observational snapshot, it cannot prove...
Trends in comorbidities and multimorbidity among adults with recently diagnosed diabetes: United States, 1999-2023.
A national survey found that most adults newly diagnosed with diabetes already have other health problems like high blood pressure or kidney disease, and the number of combined...
Shrunken pore syndrome increased the risk of acute kidney injury after cardiac surgery: a cohort study
People with shrunken pore syndrome — a condition where tiny filters in the kidney become too narrow, measured by blood and urine tests — were more likely to suffer sudden kidney...
HFpEF-ABA Score and Finerenone in Patients With Heart Failure and Mildly Reduced or Preserved Ejection Fraction: Insights From the FINEARTS-HF Trial.
The FINEARTS-HF trial tested finerenone in 702 people with heart failure and mild kidney problems over about two years. The drug lowered the risk of serious kidney or heart events...
Doença Renal Crônica em pacientes com Diabetes Mellitus tipo 2: novas estratégias de prevenção e tratamento
A Portuguese-language review of how to prevent and treat kidney disease in people with type 2 diabetes. It summarizes existing strategies rather than testing anything new, so there...
The Heart–Kidney Axis in Heart Failure and Chronic Kidney Disease: Mechanisms, Mediators, and Therapeutic Implications
A review of how a failing heart and failing kidneys damage each other. It covers the mechanisms and the signals passed between the two organs, and points to where treatments might...
A Comparative Study to Evaluate the Renoprotective Effect of Antidiabetic Drugs in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
This study compared different diabetes drugs to see which ones protect the kidneys in people with type 2 diabetes. Kidney damage from diabetes is a leading cause of chronic kidney...
Preventing Type 2 Diabetes in At-Risk Cardiorenal Populations.
A review about people who already have chronic kidney disease and are prediabetic or at risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Its argument is that prediabetes in this group is both a...
Questioning the kidney-protective effects of tolvaptan: a testable hypothesis to revisit the current narrative.
Tolvaptan is the only approved drug for slowing polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD), an inherited disease where cysts crowd out working kidney tissue. It makes people urinate...
Modeling chronic kidney disease progression using a continuous-time multistate Markov model: Transition dynamics and covariate effects.
Researchers pulled past patient records and built a math model of how people with chronic kidney disease move between stages over time. The model estimates the chance of moving up...
FGF23 - A hormone produced by bone and has many faces.
This is a review article about FGF23, a hormone made by bone that controls phosphate and vitamin D levels in the body. It walks through what goes wrong when FGF23 is too high or...
Forsythoside A Alleviates Hypertensive Nephropathy by Promoting Mitophagy and Inhibiting Ferroptosis via ASCL1-CCNB1/mTOR Pathway.
Forsythoside A is the main active compound in a plant used in traditional Chinese medicine for inflammation. Researchers tested it against kidney damage caused by high blood...
Nutrition Supplements and Serum Albumin in Hemodialysis: A Meta-Analysis.
A review of 18 studies found that nutrition supplements — like protein shakes given during or after dialysis — raised blood albumin by about 0.3 grams per deciliter on average,...
Randomized Trial of Dietary Nitrate Supplementation in CKD Pregnancy (ORCHARD-BEET).
A small trial is testing beetroot juice (400 mg of dietary nitrate) in pregnant women with moderate-to-severe kidney disease to see if it helps protect their kidneys — the study...
Ambient heat and acute kidney injury: between-study heterogeneity tracks the lag window. A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies.
This large review combined data from many studies and found that hot weather raises the risk of sudden kidney injury — especially when heat exposure happens a few days before. The...
Effects of Ramadan Fasting on Intradialytic Hypoglycemia and Clinical Outcomes in Patients with Diabetes on Maintenance Hemodialysis: A Multicenter Prospective Cohort Study in Southern Thailand
A study of 214 adults on dialysis in Thailand found that those who fasted during Ramadan had more low blood sugar episodes between dialysis sessions. This shows a link, but other...
Oral dysbiosis in children with renal failure: a systematic review
This review pulled together studies on the mix of bacteria in the mouths of children with kidney failure. It reports that this mix is shifted compared with healthy children. The...
Dietary inflammatory index in patients with chronic kidney disease under conservative treatment at a university hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Doctors in Rio de Janeiro scored the diets of adults with chronic kidney disease who are being managed without dialysis. They used a validated tool that rates how much a diet is...
Time-restricted feeding reverses kidney fibrosis through reduced CD8+ T cell infiltration in obese mice.
In obese mice, limiting eating to 10 hours a day for two weeks reversed kidney scarring and lowered certain immune cells in the kidney. This was not tested in people, so it is...
Myeloid myeloid PRDM16 restrains macrophage inflammatory remodeling and renal fibrosis in diabetic kidney disease by limiting PI3K/AKT activation.
In mice and test-tube cells, a protein called PRDM16 in immune cells helped lower kidney scarring in diabetic disease by blocking one signaling pathway. This was not tested in...
Processed qMSI count matrices from IRI mouse kidneys
This is raw data from mouse kidneys — not people — used to test a new imaging method for kidney injury. It is early lab work, and it is not yet clear if this will help humans.
Neutrophil gelatinase-associated lipocalin and kidney injury Molecule-1 as potential biomarkers of the transition from rhabdomyolysis-induced acute kidney injury to chronic kidney disease.
Sudden kidney injury sometimes never fully heals and turns into long term kidney disease, and standard kidney tests are poor at spotting that turn. Researchers tested two proteins,...
Lateral Flow Assay to detect CXCL10 as a diagnose-supporting biomarker for Polyomavirus-associated Nephropathy (PVAN) after kidney transplantation (KTx)
Scientists created a quick test strip to detect a protein (CXCL10) that rises when transplant rejection happens due to a virus. The test worked in lab dishes and animal samples,...
Clinicopathological evaluation of crescentic glomerulonephritis: a retrospective single-center study
A single hospital’s回顾 of 108 patients with a rare kidney inflammation showed how symptoms and lab tests matched disease severity, but because it is observational, it shows only a...
Discovery and validation of a multi-protein panel for predicting non-fatal major adverse cardiovascular events in diabetic kidney disease
Scientists found a group of proteins that were linked to future heart problems in people with diabetic kidney disease, but this observational study shows only a connection — not...
Uric acid as an integrative severity marker in hospitalized patients with heart failure: association with NT-proBNP, inflammation and renal dysfunction
Higher uric acid levels were linked to worse heart and kidney health in hospitalized patients, but this study shows only a connection — not proof that uric acid causes harm.
Weight-adjusted waist index and risk of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in chronic kidney disease: NHANES 2005–2018 analysis of 5,381 adults
In over 5,000 adults with chronic kidney disease, a measure of belly fat (weight-adjusted waist index) was linked to higher risk of heart problems and death — but this study cannot...
Prevalence and associated factors of sarcopenia in older adults with type 2 diabetes: a cross-sectional study
In older adults with type 2 diabetes, muscle loss (sarcopenia) was linked to higher rates of hospital stays and death — but because this is a snapshot in time, it shows only a...
Urinary angiotensinogen indexed to creatinine or protein is higher in cats with surgically induced chronic kidney disease compared to healthy cats
In cats with surgically induced kidney disease, a protein called angiotensinogen was higher in urine — but this was tested only in animals, not people, so it is too early to say...
Podocyte hypertrophy in segmental sclerotic lesions correlates with poor renal outcomes in PLA₂R-associated membranous nephropathy
In people with a specific kidney disease (PLA₂R-associated membranous nephropathy), larger podocytes in certain lesions were linked to worse kidney outcomes, but this observational...
Association between α-klotho and frailty progression at dialysis initiation: a prospective cohort study
In 212 people starting dialysis, lower levels of a protein called α-klotho were linked to faster frailty worsening over one year. Because this is an observational study, it shows a...
Loss of Nocturnal Dipping in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus According to Diabetic Kidney Disease: The Role of Vitamin D Levels
In people with type 2 diabetes, those who had kidney disease were more likely to have a blood pressure pattern that does not drop at night — and low vitamin D levels were linked to...
Headache across the spectrum of kidney disease: epidemiology, clinical patterns, pathophysiological mechanisms, and management-a narrative review
This is a narrative review of headaches in people with kidney disease. It walks through how common they are, what patterns show up, why they may happen, and how doctors treat them....
Immune Checkpoint Inhibitor–Associated Acute Kidney Injury
A clinical review of sudden kidney injury caused by immune checkpoint inhibitors, a class of cancer drug. It is written for cancer doctors on how to spot and manage the problem....