Winning the battle with feline kidney disease (via Playful Kitten)

illustration: original post

Playful Kitten 23 May 2016: "When it comes to Feline Kidney Disease, knowledge is much of the battle. If we don’t know that a disease is present, how are we supposed to help our cats fight it? Lucky for our kitties, IDEXX has introduced a brand new way of testing for Feline Kidney Disease (the IDEXX SDMA™ Kidney Screening Test) that may change what we know about this fatal disease.

A cat’s kidneys work as a filtration device for their blood. A network of tiny filters, known as nephron, work to remove toxins from the blood, regulate the amount of water in the blood and do other important regulatory functions. Having functional kidneys is essential to a cat’s survival.

Cats are born with a certain number of nephrons. Some of the nephrons are used while are held in reserve. Over time, normal wear and tear, as well as disease, and other environmental factors cause nephrons to die. As these nephrons die, the reserve nephrons take over. Nephrons are not regenerated in the cat’s body, so when they are all gone, the kidneys cease to..." read on.