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Kidney Disease and Heart Disease Spur Each Other Hearts and kidneys: If ones diseased, better keep a close eye on1 the other. Surprising new research shows kidney disease somehow speeds up heart disease well before it has ravaged the kidneys. And perhaps not so surprising, doctors have finally proven that heart disease can trigger kidney destruction, too. The work, from two studies involving over 50,000 patients, promises to boost efforts to diagnose simmering kidney disease earlier. All it takes are urine and blood tests that cost less than $ 25, something proponents want to become as routine as cholesterol checks. 2 The average patient knows their cholesterol,says Dr. Peter McCullough, preventive medicine chief at Michigans William Beaumont Hospital. The average patient has no idea of3 their kidney function. Chronic kidney disease, or CKD, is a quiet epidemic: Many of the 19 million Americans estimated to have it dont know they do. The kidneys lose their ability to filter waste out of the bloodstream so slowly that symptoms arent obvious until the organs are very damaged. End-stage kidney failure is rising fast, with 400,000 people requiring dialysis or a transplant to survive, a toll that has doubled in each of the last two decades, s And while CKD patients often are terrified of having to go on dialysis, the hard truth is that most will die of heart disease before their kidneys disintegrate to that point, something kidney specialists have recognized for several years but isnt widely known, s Indeed, the new | 
