It is one of the most important organs in the human body.

Hence the importance of taking care of it.

Thursday, in his column Our Health, doctor Jimmy Mohamed explains how to preserve our kidneys and especially how to detect kidney failure.

And for that, there is only one solution: to take a blood test.

It is an organ that we perhaps do not talk about enough.

On International Kidney Day, Dr. Jimmy Mohamed explains how to take care of his kidneys.

About ten centimeters long, they are located in the lumbar fossa, between the eleventh and the second rib, and are of crucial importance in the human body: thanks to an extraordinary network of blood vessels which, placed end to end, represent more than 100,000 km of arteries and veins, they are used to clean the blood of its impurities. 

>> Find Jimmy Mohamed's column every morning at 8:37 am on Europe 1 as well as in replay and podcast here

Each day, the kidneys will thus wash all of your blood 300 times, which represents 1800 liters which will be purified.

But that's not all.

The kidneys also help regulate minerals in your body, such as sodium, potassium and calcium.

They will also activate vitamin D, which is much talked about and will also secrete a hormone well known to certain doping cyclists: EPO, which makes it possible to synthesize red blood cells.

And all of this your kidney does 24/7, almost never complaining.

This is where the expression "to have a strong back" comes from.

How do you know if you have kidney failure?

Kidney failure affects 6 million people in France.

And the problem is, even with a diseased kidney, you hardly have any symptoms.

You can't tell your kidney is in pain if you don't have a blood test.

Because with the blood test, the diagnosis is simple: we will measure what is called creatinine.

And the higher this creatinine, the less your kidneys function properly.

You can also test yourself with a small urine test strip.

It is a practice used in particular by occupational medicine.

In this case, we will look for proteins, because when a kidney works less well, it will leave these proteins that we will find in the urine.

How to preserve your kidneys?

In France, the two main causes of kidney failure are high blood pressure and diabetes.

It may sound silly, but these two diseases will actually damage the small blood vessels that bring blood to the kidney cells, which will then be destroyed in turn, resulting in kidney failure.

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To preserve your kidneys, it's simple.

You need to have good blood pressure and a blood sugar level called normal blood sugar.

Another very simple advice, drink between 1 liter and 1.5 liters of water per day, it is more than enough.

Stopping smoking, participating in regular physical activity and trying to eat a balanced diet also helps to take care of your kidneys.

And more broadly, to take care of your health in general.