Kidney healthcare in the context of climate change and water shortage in Australia

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  • NAGAI Kei
    Department of Nephrology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Tsukuba

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  • 豪州の地球温暖化と水枯渇に対応する腎臓医療
  • ゴウシュウ ノ チキュウ オンダンカ ト ミズ コカツ ニ タイオウ スル ジンゾウ イリョウ

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Abstract

<p>With climate change-related extreme weather and the spread of dehydrated lands, water shortages have become serious all around the world. In addition, especially in Australia, the prevalence of serious diseases related to diabetes and metabolic syndrome has increased. Therefore, demands for healthcare have risen, and in turn, healthcare initiates an adverse feedback cycle by increasing the environmental impacts of healthcare. Climate change exacerbates heat illness and vector-borne infection, which results in health impacts. The kidneys maintain fluid volume and electrolytes and remove waste products and uremic toxins from the body. Kidney damage due to diabetes and inflammatory disease occasionally progresses to end-stage kidney disease. To save the lives of patients with end-stage kidney disease, dialysis therapy is required with an environmental cost of 10.2 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions annually per patient and 500 L of water usage just for one therapy session. In Japan, the number of patients undergoing dialysis therapy has been growing, reaching one in 350 people in the general population, indicating that dialysis therapy is not rare nowadays. Globally, the number of patients is expected to increase further. In Australia and the United Kingdom, which are advanced in environmental issues, efforts to promote innovation such as water reuse, solar power-assisted dialysis machine use, and appropriate dialysis methods have been encouraged by “Green Nephrology”. Such green activities are usually focused around medical professionals, but it is desirable to build a system of cooperation that includes environmental scientists, engineers, and drug companies as individuals that support medical care, and local residents and politicians as individuals that receive medical care. Furthermore, it is possible to utilize dialysis drainage containing nitrogen and electrolyte used for dialysis therapy, and this may be realized by the cooperation of researchers involved in arid land agriculture such as cultivation of halophytes. By spreading Green Nephrology not only in Australia and Japan but all over the world, it is thought that the environmental load of medical care will be reduced, which in turn will contribute to the maintenance of health.</p>

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