Dr. Fabong Yildam, a medical doctor at the Plateau State Specialist Hospital, on Wednesday blamed the high rate of renal diseases and failure on self medication and ingestion of traditional drugs.
Yildam told the News Agency of Nigeria in Jos that most people had continued to imbibe self-medication, which, he said, contributed to more cases of renal diseases.
He said: “People take drugs indiscriminately and without a doctor’s prescription.
“Some of these drugs are excreted through the kidneys and they overwork the kidneys.
“Before you know what’s happening, the kidneys shut down.”
According to Yildam, 50 to 80 per cent of Nigerians depend on traditional medicines, which are not tested for efficiency and safety, a situation he says is highly detrimental as such herbs can damage the kidneys.
He said: “People take a lot of traditional herbs.
“They do not know the quantity and quality of what they are taking or what the traditional medicine is made up of.”
Yildam also said that severe malaria and hemoglobin smnopatics could predispose an individual to kidney disease.
Other factors such as snake bite and bee sting could also predispose an individual to kidney or renal disease, he said.
He said: “Asides the bleeding that can caused blockage of the tubes in the kidney that conducts water from the body and excretes it, if the tubes are blocked, the kidneys will shut down.”
He said that the snake venom releases some toxins that affect the muscles in the body and could increase the burden on the kidney, which could lead to it shut down.
The doctor said that kidney disease was either acquired or congenital with congenital renal disease inherent from birth due to some malformations in the development of the kidney.
He said that acquired renal disease could be as a result of lifestyles or caused by other diseases in the body, which lead to renal failure.
The doctor, therefore, advised people to desist from self-medication and inculcate the habit of regular medical checks to determine the overall performance of their body system.
