Living well with kidney disease by patient and care partner empowerment: kidney health for everyone everywhere

Living with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is associated with hardships for patients and their care partners. Empowering patients and their care partners, including family members or friends involved in their care, may help minimize the burden and consequences of CKD-related symptoms to enable life participation. There is a need to broaden the focus on living well with kidney disease and re-engagement in life, including an emphasis on patients being in control. The World Kidney Day (WKD) Joint Steering Committee has declared 2021 the year of ‘Living Well with Kidney Disease’ in an effort to increase education and awareness on the important goal of patient empowerment and life participation. This calls for the development and implementation of validated patient-reported outcome measures to assess and address areas of life participation in routine care. It could be supported by regulatory agencies as a metric for quality care or to support labeling claims for medicines and devices. Funding agencies could establish targeted calls for research that address the priorities of patients. Patients with kidney disease and their care partners should feel supported to live well through concerted efforts by kidney care communities including during pandemics. In the overall wellness program for kidney disease patients, the need for prevention should be reiterated. Early detection with a prolonged course of wellness despite kidney disease, after effective secondary and tertiary prevention programs, should be promoted. WKD 2021 continues to call for increased awareness of the importance of preventive measures throughout populations, professionals and policymakers, applicable to both developed and developing countries

Burden, Access, and Disparities in Kidney Disease

This article is being published in Kidney International and reprinted concurrently in several journals. The articles cover identical concepts and wording, but vary in minor stylistic and spelling changes, detail, and length of manuscript in keeping with each journals style. Any of these versions may be used in citing this article. Note that all authors contributed equally to the conception, preparation, and editing of the manuscript

Identification and Functional Characterization of a Novel Susceptibility Locus for Small Vessel Vasculitis with MPO-ANCA

Objective To identify and characterize genetic loci associated with the risk of developing ANCA-associated vasculitides (AAV). Methods Genetic association analyses were performed after Illumina sequencing of 1853 genes and subsequent replication with genotyping of selected single nucleotide polymorphisms in a total cohort of 1110 Scandinavian cases with granulomatosis with polyangiitis or microscopic polyangiitis, and 1589 controls. A novel AAV-associated single nucleotide polymorphism was analysed for allele-specific effects on gene expression using luciferase reporter assay. Results PR3-ANCA+ AAV was significantly associated with two independent loci in the HLA-DPB1/HLA-DPA1 region [rs1042335, P = 6.3 × 10−61, odds ratio (OR) 0.10; rs9277341, P = 1.5 × 10−44, OR 0.22] and with rs28929474 in the SERPINA1 gene (P = 2.7 × 10−10, OR 2.9). MPO-ANCA+ AAV was significantly associated with the HLA-DQB1/HLA-DQA2 locus (rs9274619, P = 5.4 × 10−25, OR 3.7) and with a rare variant in the BACH2 gene (rs78275221, P = 7.9 × 10−7, OR 3.0), the latter a novel susceptibility locus for MPO-ANCA+ granulomatosis with polyangiitis/microscopic polyangiitis. The rs78275221-A risk allele reduced luciferase gene expression in endothelial cells, specifically, as compared with the non-risk allele. Conclusion We identified a novel susceptibility locus for MPO-ANCA+ AAV and propose that the associated variant is of mechanistic importance, exerting a regulatory function on gene expression in specific cell types

Supplementary Material for: Effect of Nocturnal Haemodialysis on Body Composition

Background: Haemodialysis patients have a high risk of malnutrition which is associated with increased mortality. Nocturnal haemodialysis (NHD) is associated with a significant increase in protein intake compared with conventional haemodialysis (CHD). It is unclear whether this leads to improved nutritional status. Therefore, we studied whether 1 year of NHD is associated with a change in body composition. Methods: Whole-body composition using dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) and normalised protein catabolic rate (nPCR) were measured in 11 adult patients before and 1 year after the transition from CHD (12 h dialysis/week) to NHD (28-48 h dialysis/week). Similar measurements were performed in a matched control group of 13 patients who stayed on CHD. Differences between groups were analysed with linear mixed models. Results: At baseline, nPCR, total mass, fat-free mass, and fat mass did not differ significantly between the CHD and NHD groups. nPCR increased in the NHD group (from 0.96 ± 0.23 to 1.12 ± 0.20 g/kg/day; p = 0.027) whereas it was stable in the CHD group (0.93 ± 0.21 at baseline and 0.87 ± 0.09 g/kg/day at 1 year, n.s.). The change in nPCR differed significantly between the two groups (p = 0.027). We observed no significant differences in the course of total mass, fat-free mass, and fat mass during the 1-year observation period between the NHD and CHD groups. Conclusions: One year of NHD had no significant effect on body composition in comparison with CHD, despite a significantly higher protein intake in patients on NHD

Additional file 25 of Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis

Additional file 25: Table S16. Comparison of effect size estimates for sex-stratified analysis in the replication cohorts

Additional file 2 of Implicating genes, pleiotropy, and sexual dimorphism at blood lipid loci through multi-ancestry meta-analysis

Additional file 2: Table S2. Association results for the multi-ancestry index SNPs with the gene prioritization