High urea levels in chronic kidney failure might be toxic after all

It is thought that the elevated levels of urea (the byproduct of protein breakdown that is excreted in the urine) in patients with end-stage kidney failure are not particularly toxic. However, a team of researchers, at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, and Universita degli Studi di Foggia, Italy, has now generated evidence in mice that high levels of urea are indeed toxic. They therefore suggest that blocking the effects of high levels of urea might benefit patients with end-stage kidney disease...

Read the whole article on

More from