Kidney health is under severe threat in the country due to a combination of poor hydration, excessive protein intake, and high salt and sugar intake.

Other debilitating factors hampering the kidney’s function include excessive consumption of processed and fatty foods, frequent eating out and the misuse of herbal medicines.

A Senior Lecturer at the Department of Diabetics, University of Ghana, Dr Rebecca K. Steele-Dadzie, who disclosed these in a lecture, stated that those eating habits were also contributing to a sharp rise in other chronic diseases, including hypertension, diabetes and obesity.

Dr Steele-Dadzie said a worrying trend of kidney diseases, including acute kidney injury and kidney stones, was due to poor hydration, excess Vitamin C intake and unsafe traditional practices.

“Now, chronic kidney injury is a more sudden kind of loss of kidney function, and usually it’s due to an underlying cause,” she said in a lecture on the topic, “To Eat or Not to Eat: Dietary Habits and the Courting of Kidney Diseases.”

The two-day public lecture in Accra last Wednesday was part of the activities to mark the 25th anniversary of the College of Health Sciences of the university.