What are the health effects on kidney donors?

Question by roxxie025: What are the health effects on kidney donors?
Besides, of course, the immediate pain afterwards and recovery. How do kidney donors live out the rest of their lives? Can they drink alcohol, play sports? Is their life expectancy shortened? Are they more prone to disease?

Best answer:

Answer by july_exodus
Well, according to the medical professionals, a human can survive on just one kidney alone without any adverse effects.

They can function normally just like everyone else, and no, their life expectancy is not shortened, nor are they more prone to disease. How prone to disease an individual is depends on his immune system, not on the functioning of his kidneys.

As a precaution, a single-kidney individual would want to take more care of his single kidney, because that’s all he has. Therefore, he should:

1) Cut down on salt intake. The more salt there is in the body, the more dehydrated it becomes, and this will affect the kidney. Also, foods with high salt content might form stones in the kidney, and stones have to be removed if they get too big.

2) Go to the toilet when he has to. This means that if you feel the need to pee, you should go. Because keeping urine inside the body might damage the kidney.

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