When you go to bed do you wake up to the slightest noise (car going by the house, a dog barking outside, the heat going on or the cat fight outside)?  I know I do and have for years; unfortunately the slightest noise wakes me up, even a pin dropping to the floor and probably live on 5 to 6 hours a day of sleep.  Some people even feel when they are scrambling to meet the countless demands of their day, cutting back on sleep might seem like the only answer. Who can afford to spend so much time sleeping, anyway? The truth is you can’t afford not to. Even minimal sleep loss takes a toll on your mood, energy, and ability to handle stress. By understanding your nightly sleep needs and what you can do to bounce back from chronic sleep loss, you can finally get on a healthy sleep schedule or pattern.

Sleep deprivation

Many of us try to sleep as little as possible. There are so many things that seem more interesting or important than getting a few more hours of sleep, but just as exercise and nutrition are essential for optimal health and happiness, so is sleep. The quality of your sleep directly affects the quality of your waking life, including your mental sharpness, productivity, emotional balance, creativity, physical vitality, and even your weight. No other activity delivers so many benefits with so little effort!

According to the National Institutes of Health, the average adult sleeps less than seven hours per night. In today’s fast-paced society, six or seven hours of sleep may sound pretty good. In reality, though, it’s a recipe for chronic sleep deprivation.

Remember sleep deprivation can affect you like a drunk.  This could be many symptoms like fatigue, lethargy, lack of motivation, moodiness and irritability, reduced creativity and problem-solving skills, inability to cope with stress, reduced immunity; frequent colds and infections, concentration and memory problems, weight gain, impaired motor skills, increased risk of accidents, difficulty making decisions to even increased risk of diabetes, heart disease, and other health problems.

 There is a big difference between the amount of sleep you can just get by on to get through your day  compared to the amount you need to function optimally. Just because you’re able to operate on seven hours of sleep doesn’t mean you wouldn’t feel a lot better and get more done if you spent an extra hour or two in bed.

While sleep requirements vary slightly from person to person, most healthy adults need between seven and a half to nine hours of sleep per night to function at their best. Children and teens need even more (see Average Sleep Needs table below). And despite the notion that our sleep needs decrease with age, older people still need at least seven and a half to eight hours of sleep. Since older adults often have trouble sleeping this long at night, daytime naps can help fill in the gap.

The best way to figure out if you’re meeting your sleep needs is to evaluate how you feel as you go about your day. If you’re logging enough hours, you’ll feel energetic and alert all day long, from the moment you wake up until your regular bedtime.

Consistency doing the following measures is the key to prevent sleep deprivation: Settle short-term sleep debt with an extra hour or two per night, Keep a sleep diary, Take a sleep vacation to pay off a long-term sleep debt, finally you must make sleep a priority.

Understanding sleep

Sleep isn’t exactly a time when your body and brain shut off. While you rest, your brain stays busy, overseeing a wide variety of biological maintenance that keeps your body running in top condition, preparing you for the day ahead. Without enough hours of restorative sleep, you won’t be able to work, learn, create, and communicate at a level even close to your true potential. Regularly skimp on “service” and you’re headed for a major mental and physical breakdown.

The good news is that you don’t have to choose between health and productivity. As you start getting the sleep you need, your energy and efficiency will go up. In fact, you’re likely to find that you actually get more done during the day than when you were skimping on shuteye.

It’s not just the number of hours in bed that’s important—it’s the quality of those hours of sleep. If you’re giving yourself plenty of time for sleep, but you’re still having trouble waking up in the morning or staying alert all day, you may not be spending enough time in the different stages of sleep.

Each stage of sleep in the sleep cycle offers benefits to the sleeper. However, deep sleep (Stage N3) and REM sleep are particularly important.  Learn more about the stages of sleep tomorrow and maybe it will help you strive for better health!

“Chronic kidney disease (CKD)—or chronic renal failure (CRF), as it was historically termed—is a term that encompasses all degrees of decreased kidney function, from damaged–at risk through mild, moderate, and severe chronic kidney failure. ^[1] CKD is a worldwide public health problem. In the United States, there is a rising incidence and prevalence of kidney failure, with poor outcomes and high cost (see Epidemiology).

CKD is more prevalent in the elderly population. However, while younger patients with CKD typically experience progressive loss of kidney function, 30% of patients over 65 years of age with CKD have stable disease. ^[2]

CKD is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease and end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Kidney disease is the 10th leading cause of death in the United States. ^[3] )

Medscape (https://emedicine.medscape.com/article/238798-overview)

“Acute kidney failure occurs when your kidneys suddenly become unable to filter waste products from your blood. When your kidneys lose their filtering ability, dangerous levels of wastes may accumulate, and your blood’s chemical makeup may get out of balance.

Acute kidney failure — also called acute renal failure or acute kidney injury — develops rapidly, usually in less than a few days.”

MAYO CLINIC (https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/kidney-failure/symptoms-causes/syc-20369048)

“Most people know that a major function of the kidneys is to remove waste products and excess fluid from the body. These waste products and excess fluid are removed through the urine. The production of urine involves highly complex steps of excretion and re-absorption. This process is necessary to maintain a stable balance of body chemicals.

The critical regulation of the body’s salt, potassium and acid content is performed by the kidneys. The kidneys also produce hormones that affect the function of other organs. For example, a hormone produced by the kidneys stimulates red blood cell production. Other hormones produced by the kidneys help regulate blood pressure and control calcium metabolism.”

National Kidney Foundation (https://www.kidney.org/kidneydisease/howkidneyswrk)

The kidneys are important organs with many functions in the body, including producing hormones, absorbing minerals, and filtering blood and producing urine. While they are important and kidney failure can be fatal, a human only needs one healthy kidney to survive.

The kidneys are two bean-shaped organs that extract waste from blood, balance body fluids, form urine, and aid in other important functions of the body.

They reside against the back muscles in the upper abdominal cavity. They sit opposite each other on either side of the spine. The right kidney sits a little bit lower than the left to accommodate the liver.

When it comes to components of the urinary system, the kidneys are multi-functional powerhouses of activity, for if the kidneys aren’t working, meaning they don’t filter toxic wastes out of our blood stream (with other functions it does) than the waste products don’t get dumped into the urinary bladder from the renal tubes, called right and left ureters. In human anatomy, the ureters are tubes made of smooth muscle fibers that propel urine from the kidneys to the urinary bladder. If the kidneys are not working they are not filtering our blood (same principle as filtering beer to make it to perfection, the kidneys do it for our blood to be able to have the cells do their function to the optimal levels with keeping toxins out of the body in preventing many blood problems with more due to acidosis (toxin build up). In the adult, the ureters are usually 25–30 cm (10–12 in) long and ~3–4 mm in diameter.

The kidneys have multiple functions.

Some of the core actions of a healthy kidney or kidneys                        of a human body include:

• • Waste excretion: There are many things your body doesn’t want inside of it. The kidneys filter out toxins, excess salts, and urea (a toxin), a nitrogen-based waste created by cell metabolism.
  • * Urea is an organic chemical compound and is essentially the waste produced by the body after metabolizing protein. Naturally the compound urea is produced when the liver breaks down protein or amino acids, and ammonia, the kidneys then transfer the urea from the blood to the urine, when they do filtering of the blood.
  • * Urea is a byproduct of protein metabolism, the ending result.
  • *Extra nitrogen is expelled from the body through urea because it is extremely soluble (solid); it is a very efficient process. The average person excretes about 30 grams of urea a day, mostly through urine but a small amount is also secreted in perspiration. Synthetic versions of the chemical compound can be created in liquid or solid form and is often an ingredient found in fertilizers, animal food, and diuretics, just to name a few . Urea is what gives our urine the color yellow.
  •  *In the gastrointestinal tract, blood proteins are broken down into ammonia (could be due to high protein eating to drugs with actual conditions); and goes to the liver converting it to Urea. It is then released into the blood stream where the kidney’s take it up and eliminate it. Urea is then eliminated by the kidney’s, but not produced by it. –
  • Urea is synthesized in the liver and transported through the blood to the kidneys for removal.

  • A Healthy Kidney or Kidneys functions in the human body:

  • Water level balancing: As the kidneys are key in the chemical breakdown of urine, they react to changes in the body’s water level throughout the day. As water intake decreases, the kidneys adjust accordingly and leave water in the body instead of helping excrete it which aides in electrolyte balancing in the blood with keeping the body hydrated properly.
  • Blood pressure regulation: The kidneys need constant pressure to filter the blood. When it drops too low, the kidneys increase the pressure. One way is by producing a blood vessel-constricting protein (angiotensin) that also signals the body to retain sodium and water. Both the constriction and retention help restore normal blood pressure.
  • Red blood cell regulation: When the kidneys don’t get enough oxygen, they send out a distress call in the form of erythropoietin, a hormone that stimulates the bone marrow to produce more oxygen-carrying red blood cells.
  • Acid regulation: As cells metabolize, they produce acids. Foods we eat can either increase the acid in our body or neutralize it. If the body is to function properly, it needs to keep a healthy balance of these chemicals. The kidneys do that, too.Because of all of the vital functions the kidneys perform and the toxins they encounter, the kidneys are susceptible to various problems.

• What is Acute Kidney Failure?

  • is a condition in which the kidneys suddenly lose their ability to function properly. This can occur for many reasons, including:
  • Most people are born with two kidneys, but many people can live on just one. Kidney transplant surgeries with live donors are common medical procedures today.

• This can occur due to many conditions, including:

• Infection
• Blood-clotting disorders
• Decreased blood flow caused by low blood pressure
• Autoimmune kidney disorders
• Urinary tract infections
• Complications from pregnancy
• DehydrationDiseases

       What is Chronic Kidney Failure?

• Chronic kidney failure – same as acute in that the kidney (s) loses its function.

• Diseases and conditions that commonly cause chronic kidney disease include:
• Type 1 or type 2 diabetes
• High blood pressure
• Glomerulonephritis (gloe-mer-u-lo-nuh-FRY-tis), an inflammation of the kidney’s filtering units (glomeruli)
• Interstitial nephritis, an inflammation of the kidney’s tubules and surrounding structures
• Polycystic kidney disease
• Prolonged obstruction of the urinary tract, from conditions such as enlarged prostate, kidney stones and some cancers
• Vesicoureteral (ves-ih-koe-yoo-REE-ter-ul) reflux, a condition that causes urine to back up into your kidneys
• Recurrent kidney infection, also called pyelonephritis (pie-uh-lo-nuh-FRY-tis)
• A chronic condition caused the failure to happen called a secondary diagnosis.
• Learn more tomorrow about Acute and Chronic kidney failure.

“Excluding skin cancers, colorectal cancer is the third most common cancer diagnosed in both men and women in the United States. The American Cancer Society’s estimates for the number of colorectal cancers in the United States for 2023 are:

106,970 new cases of colon cancer
46,050 new cases of rectal cancer

The rate of people being diagnosed with colon or rectal cancer each year has dropped overall since the mid-1980s, mainly because more people are getting screened and changing their lifestyle-related risk factors. From 2011 to 2019, incidence rates dropped by about 1% each year. But this downward trend is mostly in older adults. In people younger than 50, rates have been increasing by 1% to 2% a year since the mid-1990s.”

American Cancer Society (https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/about/key-statistics.html)

The staging system most often used for colorectal cancer is the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) TNM system, which is based on 3 key pieces of information:

• The extent (size) of the tumor (T): How far has the cancer grown into the wall of the colon or rectum? These layers, from the inner to the outer, include:
  • The inner lining (mucosa), which is the layer in which nearly all colorectal cancers start. This includes a thin muscle layer (muscularis mucosa).
  • The fibrous tissue beneath this muscle layer (submucosa)
  • A thick muscle layer (muscularis propria)
  • The thin, outermost layers of connective tissue (subserosa and serosa) that cover most of the colon but not the rectum
  • The spread to nearby lymph nodes (N): Has the cancer spread to nearby lymph nodes?
  • The spread (metastasis) to distant sites (M): Has the cancer spread to distant lymph nodes or distant organs such as the liver or lungs?The system described below is the most recent AJCC system effective January 2018. It uses the pathologic stage (also called the surgical stage) which is determined by examining tissue removed during an operation. This is also known as surgical staging. This is likely to be more accurate than clinical staging, which takes into account the results of a physical exam, biopsies, and imaging tests, done before surgery.

    Numbers or letters after T, N, and M provide more details about each of these factors. Higher numbers mean the cancer is more advanced.”

American Cancer Society (https://www.cancer.org/cancer/colon-rectal-cancer/detection-diagnosis-staging/staged.html)

“Colorectal cancer is the 2nd most deadliest cancer. One in 24 are at risk for colonrectal cancer; get educated and get screened.  If you were born the 1990’s you have 2x the risk factor for colon cancer and 4x the risk factor for rectal cancer than those born in 1950’s.  The symptoms of colonrectal cancer can be asymptomatic.”

Colon Cancer Coalition (https://coloncancercoalition.org/get-educated/what-you-need-to-know/colon-cancer-facts/)

Signs and symptoms of colon cancer include:

• A change in your bowel habits, including diarrhea or constipation or a change in the consistency of your stool, that lasts longer than four weeks
• Rectal bleeding or blood in your stool
• Persistent abdominal discomfort, such as cramps, gas or pain
• A feeling that your bowel doesn’t empty completely
• Weakness or fatigue
• Unexplained weight loss

Many people with colon cancer experience no symptoms in the early stages of the disease. When symptoms appear, they’ll likely vary, depending on the cancer’s size and location in your large intestine.

Diagnosis

Screening for colon cancer

Doctors recommend certain screening tests for healthy people with no signs or symptoms in order to look for early colon cancer. Finding colon cancer at its earliest stage provides the greatest chance for a cure. Screening has been shown to reduce your risk of dying of colon cancer.

Several screening options exist — each with its own benefits and drawbacks. Talk about your options with your doctor, and together you can decide which tests are appropriate for you. If a colonoscopy is used for screening, polyps can be removed during the procedure before they turn into cancer.

Diagnosing colon cancer

• Using a scope to examine the inside of your colon. Colonoscopy uses a long, flexible and slender tube attached to a video camera and monitor to view your entire colon and rectum. If any suspicious areas are found, your doctor can pass surgical tools through the tube to take tissue samples (biopsies) for analysis and remove polyps.
• Blood tests. No blood test can tell you if you have colon cancer. But your doctor may test your blood for clues about your overall health, such as kidney and liver function tests.Your doctor may also test your blood for a chemical sometimes produced by colon cancers (carcinoembryonic antigen or CEA). Tracked over time, the level of CEA in your blood may help your doctor understand your prognosis and whether your cancer is responding to treatment.

“Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center recommends these healthy habits, which may lower your risk of colon cancer:

• Eat more fruits, vegetables, and fiber, and less animal and fat. The American Cancer Society recommends that you eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day. Choosing such foods as beans and whole-grain bread, cereal, grain, rice, and pasta is a great way to improve your diet. Foods rich in calcium and folic acid (such as legumes, citrus, and broccoli) may also reduce your risk of colon cancer.
• Exercise regularly. Even moderate regular physical activity — such as taking the stairs instead of the elevator, raking leaves, or walking — can help reduce your risk of colon cancer.
• Maintain a healthy weight. Obesity is an important risk factor for colon cancer.”

Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (https://www.mskcc.org/cancer-care/types/colon/prevention-risk#how-can-i-lower-my-risk-of-colon-cancer-)