Mangaluru : Vivek Pathak, a nephrologist specialising in steroids-free kidney transplantation, on Sunday said prevention of kidney disease was cheaper to undergoing treatment for chronic kidney diseases (CKD). Diabetes and high blood pressure are the two primary reasons for such diseases, he said.

Speaking at the inauguration of Kidney Patients’ Association here, Dr. Pathak said no one dies by eating less. Overeating leads to obesity which in turn leads to diabetes and high BP. One would say one would start dieting from “tomorrow” and that “tomorrow” never comes. Dr. Pathak is a consultant nephrologist at Kovai Medical Center and Hospitals, Coimbatore, and has been practicing steroids-free surgery since a decade.

Preliminary results from a doctoral research by his colleague in Tamil Nadu indicated that incidences of diabetes were higher among rural populace because of presence of high amounts of pesticides in their bodies.

However, the research was still under way and was being tabulated at the nanotechnology wing of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, he said.

Dr. Pathak said during his career spanning over three decades, he had seen more female relative kidney donors than male donors. In over 80 per cent of cases, wives come forward to donate kidney to husbands, while very few husbands show that gesture. In cases of siblings, sisters often come forward to donate kidney to brothers than vice versa, he said.

Responding to another question, Dr. Pathak said stress would invariably contribute to diabetes and high blood pressure, which were the prime reasons for chronic kidney diseases. Besides diabetes and high BP, such diseases could also happen hereditarily, especially when marriages were done among close relatives. Such practices should stop, he said.

While kidney donation from relatives had been made mandatory in India, cadaver transplantation was yet to gain momentum in the country.

Organs from brain-dead people were harvested and transplanted to needy people. While about 8,000 to 10,000 cadaver transplantations were done in the U.S. every year, it is just about 300 in India, Dr. Pathak said. If cadaver donation was made popular in the country, thousands of lives could be saved, he said.

Steroids-free method would entail lesser consumption of medicines post-transplantation; would not leave marks on patients’ face; would not hinder growth of child-patients and had many other benefits, he said. Continuous administration of steroid would severely impact human body, he pointed out.

Asked why not many doctors practice the method if the system was that beneficial, Dr. Pathak said it all depends on one’s interest. “Initially, they [other nephrologists] were not prepared to believe it was [steroids-free surgery] was possible; only after I successfully conducted 300 procedures and came out with results of success over 95 per cent, they had to believe,” he added.