Your Covid vaccination might save your kidneys, reveals UCLA study

Economic Times

16 hours ago

A UCLA Health study reveals that Covid-19 vaccination significantly reduces the risk of severe kidney damage in hospitalized patients. Unvaccinated individuals were 16% more likely to require continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT) during hospitalization and faced a higher risk of death after discharge.
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A new study from UCLA Health has found that being vaccinated against Covid-19 may significantly lower the risk of severe kidney damage among hospitalized patients. The research, which analyzed data from approximately 3,500 patients admitted between March 2020 and March 2022, revealed that those who had been vaccinated were considerably less likely to require continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT)—a form of dialysis used in intensive care settings—compared to their unvaccinated counterparts.According to the findings, unvaccinated Covid patients were 16% more likely to need CRRT during their hospital stay and more than two-and-a-half times as likely to require it after discharge. Additionally, unvaccinated patients faced a higher risk of death following discharge. CRRT, often used in critical care units, helps perform the essential functions of damaged kidneys by continuously filtering waste from the blood.Lead author Dr. Niloofar Nobakht, a nephrology professor at UCLA, explained that this nonstop dialysis is vital for patients in intensive care whose kidneys can no longer function properly.The study defined vaccinated individuals as those who had received at least two doses of the Pfizer or Moderna mRNA vaccines, or one dose of the Johnson & Johnson Janssen vaccine. Its goal was to assess the severity of kidney injury in Covid patients requiring CRRT during and after hospitalization.However, some experts caution against overinterpreting the results due to a major limitation: the study lacked data on the patients' baseline kidney health prior to infection. Dr. Scott Roberts, associate medical director of infection prevention at Yale School of Medicine, told NBC News that it's unclear how well the kidneys were functioning before Covid, making it difficult to fully determine how much of the benefit was due to vaccination alone. He also explained that Covid can damage the kidneys directly or indirectly—through harm to other organs such as the lungs or heart—with disease severity being the main factor in kidney injury.Yong Chen, a biostatistics professor at the University of Pennsylvania, added that serious kidney complications are typically associated with severe Covid cases and are rare among those with mild or asymptomatic infections. He emphasized that the risk of post-Covid kidney complications is especially high for older adults and people with weakened immune systems.A nephrologist at Yale University, Dr. F. Perry Wilson told NBC that the primary reason vaccinated individuals have lower kidney injury rates is because they tend to experience less severe illness. He pointed out that while vaccines don't directly protect kidney cells, they reduce the severity of disease, which in turn helps prevent systemic complications like multi-organ failure.Some medical professionals also raised concerns about individuals with glomerulonephritis, a kidney condition affecting the organ's filtering units. Dr. Jeffrey S. Berns, a nephrologist at the University of Pennsylvania, told NBC that reports of both adults and children experiencing relapses or new onset of glomerulonephritis after Covid infection and, in some cases, following vaccination. Although he was not involved in the UCLA study, Berns urged caution for this subset of patients.While the research focused on adults, children may also face kidney risks from Covid. Chen highlighted findings from his team's separate study showing that children with prior Covid infections had a 35% higher risk of developing new chronic kidney disease within six months.