Poor kidney function could be an early warning of heart disease and stroke, two studies have found.
In the first study, researchers from Taiwan and the US found that a low fluid rate through the kidneys was linked to a higher risk of stroke in later life.
By analysing 33 studies involving more than 280,000 people they found that those with a glomerular filtration rate (test used to check how well the kidneys are working) of about half the normal level, had a 43 percent higher risk of suffering a stroke in the future.
Asian people with a low filtration rate were at a higher risk than non-Asians, reports the Telegraph.
The academics, led by Bruce Ovbiagele, stroke expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, US, recommended that treatments to lower the risk of strokes should be given to those with poor kidney function, such as taking cholesterol-lowering drugs like statins.
The second study, by British and Icelandic researchers, found that even people with the earliest stages of kidney disease were at an increased risk of developing coronary heart disease.
Their study tracked almost 17,000 people living in Iceland over a 24-year period. Both the studies were published in the British Medical Journal.
The presence of chronic kidney disease could be used as a predictor of heart disease, although only a “modest” one, they found.
It provided about half as much predictive gain as did history of diabetes or about a sixth as much as did history of smoking.