Renal disease

Renal disease is the name for a disease or condition that mainly affects the kidneys. Medical words for renal disease are nephropathy or nephrosis.

There are many possible causes of renal disease, including:

• Diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Some pain medicines which affect how well the kidneys work, if they are taken over a longer time period
• If a person has an organ transplantation, certain drugs need to be taken to keep the immune system from attacking the new organ. These often affect the kidneys.
• Certain diseases, like from eating bread contaminated with Aristolochic acid
• Certain viruses, such as HIV

If renal disease gets bad enough, it can cause renal failure, where the kidneys do not work at all.