In a piece of extremely unfair news, researchers have found that women who drink two or more sugary sodas a day are more likely to show early evidence of kidney disease. But there's no increased risk for men ... how unfair is that?

Researchers aren't sure why women who drank two or more sodas daily have an increased level of the protein albumin in their urine (an early marker for kidney disease). Without a clear understanding, it can't really be said that the soda is the cause of the problem. But researchers surveyed over 9,000 people and the trend was clear ... even if the cause isn't.

Even if the shaky soda/kidney disease correlation is a bit sexist, the other health effects of soda don't discriminate. The added sugar in soda contributes to obesity and all of its related issues, and soda (even diet soda) is terribly bad for your teeth. It's best if all of us -- men and women alike -- stick to healthier beverages.

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Beans are good for us. Martha's post about beans, the magical fruit tells us this, and the high-fiber protein powerhouse can make even the staunchest carnivores feel satisfied after a vegetarian meal that includes beans.

But did you know that eating vegetarian will actually save you money? That's a big consideration right now, with the penny-pinching hitting nearly everyone in some way.

Start with this well-rounded recipe from Epicurious, Pappardelle with Bean Bolognese Sauce, and convert your meat-lovers! With three kinds of beans, tomatoes, butternut squash, and fresh rosemary, you won't be lacking for flavor.

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When little Millie Kelly was born, she was diagnosed with gastroschisis, a condition where the intestines (and sometimes other organs) develop outside of the abdomen. During surgery to correct the defect, her kidneys started to fail.

Infants, particularly tiny infants like 6-pound Millie Kelly, are too small for traditional dialysis machines. So Millie's physician, Dr. Malcomb Coulthard on Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary in the UK, together with senior children's kidney nurse, Jean Crosier, came up with a plan for a smaller version. And then, Dr. Coulthard built the machine in his garage.

After seven days on the machine, Millie's kidneys were able to recover. Today she's a happy two-year-old and her mother describes her as "fit as a fiddle." The homemade machine is still in use, but Dr. Coulthard hopes for a professionally assembled version to replace it soon.

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10 hours. Six operating rooms. Nine surgical teams. And six new kidneys.

Johns Hopkins surgeons performed six simultaneous kidney transplants -- a surgery believed to be the first of its kind. Five of the six transplant candidates had family members willing to donate a kidney, but were incompatible for their family member. When a sixth donor -- an altruistic donor who was willing to donate to anyone in need -- stepped in, the final necessary piece of the puzzle was found. The others who were willing to donate may not have been a match for their family member, but they were matches for others who were waiting for a transplant. The surgeries were successful, and the lead surgeon reports that all donors and transplant recipients are doing well.

While most donated kidneys come from deceased donors, live donors are preferred because the success rates are higher. The six patients in this series of operations were matched through a live donor matching system created by Johns Hopkins.

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Can drinking water be harmful to your health? Why, yes, it can be, say two kidney experts. Now I don't mean excess amounts of water here. I mean your average daily recommended water intake.

How can this be, you might ask. Clearly, water is good for the body. It clears out toxins, keeps organs in fighting shape, keeps weight off, and improves skin tone. Not quite true, according to a new scientific review published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

"There is what I call an urban myth that drinking a lot of water is a healthy thing to do and it leads to people toting around plastic water bottles all day drinking water," says kidney specialist Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Goldfarb began studying the benefits of drinking water because of his interest in how the kidney handles fluids. With colleague Dr. Dan Negoianu, Goldfarb debunked four myths.

• Drinking a lot of water suppresses appetite. Nope. There is no consistent evidence of this. "Because you absorb water so quickly and it moves through the GI tract so quickly, it probably doesn't fill you up the way people have proposed, nor does it lead to the release of hormones which suppress appetite as far as we know," Goldfarb says.
  
  

• Filling up on water flushes toxins from the body. "When you drink a lot of water you end up having a larger volume of urine but don't necessarily increase the excretion of various constituents of the urine," says the researcher.
  
  

• Drinking water reduces headaches. It does not.
  
  

• Water drinking improves your skin. There is nothing to suggest that it improves the water content of the skin.
  

Goldfarb and Negoianu say that some people do have an increased need for water, like those living in hot, dry climates, some athletes, and people with certain diseases like kidney stones. But but no such data exist for average, healthy individuals. Or long-distance runners -- over-drinking during races is worse than under-drinking.

Goldfarb says he's not sure where the eight-glasses-of-water-a-day recommendation came from. There's just no rational basis for it, he says.

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A Minnesota patient underwent surgery to remove his cancerous kidney. The doctors did remove a kidney... but they removed the healthy one by mistake. The wrong kidney was identified for removal on a medical chart. As a matter of practice, the doctors double-checked the materials during surgery, and followed the (incorrect) medical chart to a tee. A pathologist noticed the error the day after surgery.

The hospital made a full apology to the patient (who has decided to stay at the hospital) and his family. The surgeon involved has voluntarily stopped seeing patients.

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I'm always skeptical of government standards when it comes to how much exposure to something is supposedly safe. Some drinks are allowed to have certain amounts of chemicals in them -- chemicals that have been linked to cancer, mind you -- just as long as they do not exceed the limits of what has been deemed "safe." The same goes for meat packaging plants; there are designated levels of "safe" rat excrement that are allowed. This time around, and with respect to the health of our hearts, it seems that the government's "safe" levels in lead exposure may not be all that (guess what?) safe after all.

Based on a report in the journal Circulation, researchers found that people who had levels of this metal from 3.6 to 10 micrograms per deciliter increased their risk of death from heart attack or stroke by 89 percent. Bear in mind, this 3.6 - 10 mcg/dL falls far below the 40mcg/dL threshold that the government has listed as being safe.

Lead is known to damage the kidneys, which, in turn, causes an increase in blood pressure and damage to the blood vessels. With that being the case, is any level of exposure truly safe? I know I have my doubts. What about you?

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It's a scary thought to think about some people who wake up one day with a pain in their abdomen, having found out they had a kidney stolen. Urban legends regarding this organ thievery have been around for ages. Well, they were true, and now a kidney transplant ring based out of India is getting shut down.

The hunt started in 1993 after authorities began trying to capture Doctor Amit Kumar. The evidence is mounted against him -- upwards of 600 kidneys are known to have been stolen under his command. You may be asking yourself, who in the world would sign up to take advantage of this service?

Clientele included needy patients from five countries. Even a couple of Americans were caught on the waiting list. But what about the victims? Indians from a poor background were scammed into selling their kidneys during an alleged job interview. But there was no job for these people to have -- only robbery. Thankfully this ring is getting busted, and hopefully the investigation roots out more criminals.

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Why am I always cold when others never are? Either my thermostat is too low or my clothes are too skimpy, say Dr. Roizen and Dr. Oz in a December 2007 Reader's Digest blurb.

Actually, body temperature is a little more complex than this, say the docs. But there are some possible explanations for my chilly tendencies. My muscles could be too inactive -- the body generates heat when muscles are active -- and I may be eating not enough carbohydrates (the 100 percent whole wheat variety, not the white flour kind). I could have hypothyroidism -- this slows metabolism and cuts down on body heat. My chilliness could also stem from low blood sugar, poor kidney function, or iron-deficiency anemia. Or it could be none of the above, because science has yet to completely unravel the mystery of body temperature.

Maybe my problem isn't a problem at all. Maybe I just need a warm sweater and a few extra blankets.

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For people with kidney disease, dialysis is a crucial mechanism that helps replace lost kidney function such as filtering the blood. This is used for patients with end-stage kidney failure. For many, dialysis can take up to four hours a session, three times a week. Doing it this way is considered a relatively fast process, which makes sense considering how much blood needs to be filtered.

But what if patients could actually wear a slower-paced dialysis machine -- a wearable, artificial kidney? Physicians say this lower rate would enable the patient to adjust easier, but it takes longer. People requiring dialysis would wear the artificial kidney much like a big tool belt for upwards of 8 hours. The machine has passed the first trials, so it may become a reality for those wishing to try a slower process.

Considering that the number of individuals in the US needing dialysis could be half a million by the time this machine sees the public, let's hope researchers move it to production quickly and successfully. The next tests are all about practicality as they will try and see how the machine stands up in everyday situations.

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For over 30 years, the medical community has prescribed vitamin D to patients with kidney disease in order to help maintain strong bones. But a new meta-analysis of many different studies concludes that this practice doesn't really help in achieving the goal it's supposed to.

The whole reason why this is prescribed was because diseased kidneys can't remove excess phosphorous from the body. Blood calcium drops due to the fact that phosphorous keeps building up. As a result, calcium is removed from the bones, hence the reason they become so weakened. This is how vitamin D became so prevalent, but the fact of the matter is that they really don't know if it helps their condition at all.

Risk of death, bone problems and other issues did not consistently change over time, even when they took the supplement compounds. In an editorial with the analysis, one associate professor of medicine out of Canada states this is evidence enough to challenge "many of our common practices." He continues by conceding that more research still needs to be done. Even so, the researchers say patients should continue following prescriptions, and more importantly pay attention to preventive measures.

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Bulimia nervosa, like anorexia nervosa, is an eating disorder that centers around control. One of the most common eating disorders, bulimia is characterized by consuming large amounts of food and then ridding the stomach of its contents by way of vomiting, over-exercising, or use of laxatives.

Eating to excess (called the "binge") is comforting to bulimics. But eating too much causes them to feel out of control. They also feel guilt, shame, and a fear of weight gain which causes them to "purge." This "binge and purge" cycle is extremely dangerous and can lead to serious and long-term health problems, like tooth decay, gum disease, loss of tooth enamel, osteoporosis, kidney damage, heart problems, and even death.

Because bulimia is harder to recognize than anorexia -- the symptoms are more subtle and bulimics are not always thin -- awareness is critical. Please consider these symptoms and physical effects of bulimia.

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Sodium is usually the first to go for someone diagnosed with high blood pressure. There's also another way to fight this condition, though, without drugs.

It's a simultaneous approach that involves cutting back on sodium intake while increasing consumption of potassium-rich foods. For greatest benefits, sodium should total 2,300 milligrams per day while potassium milligrams reach 4,700. Avoiding processed foods is a wise choice if you're watching your blood pressure -- sodium is added to most of these foods -- and upping your intake of potassium should come from foods, not supplements. Do check with your doctor about the amount of potassium you need. Some people with kidney ailments may have trouble processing potassium.

Once you get the go-ahead to pack some potassium power into your diet, here's what you might eat:

1 baked sweet potato, 694 mg
1 small baked potato, 610 mg
8 ounces non-fat yogurt, 580 mg
3 ounces cooked halibut, 490 mg
1 banana, 422 mg
1 cup milk, 380 mg
1 cup cantaloupe, 368 mg
1 cup orange juice, 355 mg
1 cup oatmeal, 120 mg

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While I've never been a smoker, I do enjoy drinking wine and I love spending time outdoors in the sunshine. I admit that I worry sometimes about the negative effects these habits may have on my health, but I guess I don't worry enough to stop doing either.

I find it pretty scary though to read that cancer charities in the UK are warning smokers, drinkers, sun-worshipers and those who are obese that incidents of deadly lifestyle-related cancers are on the rise. I realize that this news is coming out of a different country, but I also know that alcohol, cigarettes, over-eating and suntanning will have the save effects on me as on anyone in Britain.

The usual suspects like lung cancer and melanoma are named in the piece, but so are womb and mouth cancer, among others. They sound pretty terrifying and agonizing to me. I still stand by the notion that things are alright in moderation but this information makes me think that I may have to change my idea of what moderation is.

Are you concerned about lifestyle cancers?

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Although pleurisy is most commonly caused by viral infections, other underlying diseases can cause it such as pneumonia and tuberculosis, and other diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus), rheumatoid arthritis, cancer, liver and kidney disease, heart failure and pulmonary embolism. Other causes include chest injuries and drug reactions.

Pleurisy, also called pleuritis, is an inflammation of the pleura, which is the moist, double layered membrane that surrounds the lungs and lines the rib cage. The condition can make breathing extremely painful, and sometimes it is associated with another condition called pleural effusion where excess fluid fills the area between the membrane's layers.

The pain of pleurisy is usually treated with analgesic and anti-inflammatory drugs, such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and indomethacin. Pleurisy from a bacterial infection can be successfully treated with antibiotics, while no treatment is given for viral infections that must run their course. Alternative treatments can be used to help heal pleurisy. Acupuncture and botanical medicines are alternative approaches for relieving pain and breathing problems. An herbal remedy commonly recommended is Asclepias tuberosa otherwise known as pleurisy root. It got that name by early American settlers who learned of this medicinal plant from Native Americans. Pleurisy root helps to ease pain, inflammation, and breathing difficulties brought on by pleurisy.

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