ROXAS CITY, Capiz – Capiceños were told to live a healthy and active lifestyle (HAL), practice proper hygiene and have themselves regularly checked to prevent renal disease.
Capiz Kidney Specialist Rene Blancaver said adult must drink eight to 12 glasses of water daily and children, six to eight glasses, to avoid renal disease.
Other preventive measures are to avoid salty and sweet food, observe personal hygiene, undergo urinalysis once a year and monitor blood pressure regularly.
Blancaver said intake of meat must be once a week as well as the other protein-rich food and avoid uric acid-rich food such as shellfish and fish without scales.
He stressed that prevention is the best step to avoid kidney diseases.
Capiz Provincial Health Office Medical Specialist Evelyn Bolido said that through the Renal Disease Control Program (REDCOP) of the Department of Health, the PHO here continues to conduct health awareness and advocacy activities in schools and barangays.
Part of the program is the conduct of lectures to parents and students and distribution of information, education and communication materials in partnership with the Department of Education and different rural health units (RHU) in the several towns here.
"Through the RHUs, they are collecting the urine sample of Grade I pupils for urinalysis as part of the prevention program against renal and other related diseases," she said.
On the other hand, Bolido revealed that in 2011, 72 residents of Capiz died of renal failure, of whom 35 were males and 37 were females.
"Renal disease was the tenth leading cause of mortality for all ages," she said, adding that urinary tract infection was the seventh leading cause of morbidity for all ages and the 10th leading cause of morbidity among under five-year-old children last year.
In 2010, 30 medical practitioners, namely doctors, medical technologists and chiefs of hospitals from Capiz and Aklan provinces were here to undergo a seminar on urinalysis conducted by the National Kidney and Transplant Institute.
The seminar focused more on maximizing the utilization of a basic tool for diagnosis and prevention of kidney diseases based on the 10 renal syndrome amidst the increasing number of cases on renal diseases in the country. (PIA/Iloilo News Today)
