Could this be the cure for kidney disease?

Do you suffer from diabetes? Or know anyone who does? If you answered yes to either of these questions, you might want to keep reading.

An overwhelmingly large number of people have struggled with chronic illness at one point or another in their life – be it headaches, arthritis, or diabetes. A perhaps less common, but severe and often deadly chronic illness is kidney disease. Progressive kidney disease is faced by over 10% of our population, and almost half of these cases are caused by diabetes – an illness that most everyone is familiar with. 

In the fast-progressing society of today, one would assume that we would have already come up with a cure. However, the case for people affected by kidney disease is – so far – quite dire. Can you imagine uncontrollable weight loss, insomnia, shortness of breath, nausea (to name a few)? Seems pretty horrible, right? 

The current available treatments have not provided much consolation to those faced with the illness. The multidrug therapies currently used as routine treatment come with a bunch of side effects, and to top it off, they do not reverse progression into end-stage renal disease (a fancy term for kidney failure).

Luckily, in a recently published review, scientists have come up with a breakthrough solution to combating kidney disease in its early stages: using stem cells. Now you may ask, what are these magical stem cells? Stem cells can be compared to a ball beginning to roll down a hill: it has the potential to go down several different paths and thus develop into a myriad of different forms. Stem cells are grown in the bone marrow, and various other specialized cells can be developed from them. This property opens a world of possibilities for using and manipulating them. 

The article presented almost all of the knowledge we have recently gained from studying these cells in kidney disease, and the results are promising – both with the use of embryonic stem cells (cells that come from the early stage of an embryo and that are capable of evolving into any kind of cell) and the use of different types of adult stem cells (cells with a more limited ability to transform). In terms of the ball analogy – it’s as if the embryonic stem cells are still at the very top of the hill, while the adult stem cells have already gone down a few different paths. 

One study conducted on mice found that if mice with kidney failure were injected with embryonic stem cells, they had a significantly lower death rate along with a slower progression of the illness. Another study found that in damaged human kidneys that were given stem cells outside of the body, regeneration occurred. These results seem overwhelmingly good, and rightfully so! 

However, it is important to keep in mind that all of this research is still in its early stages. A large amount of the available research has been done on animal models, and human research has mainly been in pre-clinical or clinical trials. Large-scope studies on humans with kidney failure are yet to be done.

Sadly, stem cells are not (yet) the end-all-be-all cure for kidney disease. But it is clear that there is hope. Maybe, just maybe, dialysis and kidney transplants will soon be a thing of the past.

Source: 

Wong, Chee-Yin. “Current advances of stem cell-based therapy for kidney diseases.” World journal of stem cells vol. 13,7 (2021): 914-933. doi:10.4252/wjsc.v13.i7.914