{"id":778050,"date":"2026-09-21T18:18:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:18:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778050\/"},"modified":"2026-09-21T18:18:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-21T18:18:13","slug":"healthy-young-men-being-struck-down-by-mysterious-kidney-disease-of-unknown-origins-in-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/778050\/","title":{"rendered":"Healthy young men being struck down by mysterious kidney disease of unknown origins in Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A growing number of otherwise healthy young men<\/a> in the United States have been diagnosed with an unexplained form of kidney disease. <\/a><\/p>\n

Doctors in Texas have reported an increase in cases of chronic kidney disease of unknown origin<\/a> \u2014 or CKDu \u2014 which can be fatal. <\/p>\n

The condition is also known as Mesoamerican Nephropathy, a reference to the fact it is typically found in Central America. Researchers have also discovered CKDu in Sri Lanka, India and Nepal but these are the first known cases in the U.S., health care practitioners told Texas Monthly. <\/a><\/p>\n

Epidemiologists cannot agree on what exactly causes CKDu, though studies have consistently found that physical labor in extreme heat is a contributing factor. <\/p>\n

American health experts are now worried about a potential wave of CKDu cases especially among agricultural workers.<\/p>\n

\"DoctorsDoctors in Texas have reported an increase in young men with CKDu, or chronic kidney disease of unknown origin, according to a report (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

People with CKDu don\u2019t show typical risk factors of kidney disease like hypertension or diabetes, according to a 2024 paper published in the medical journal, Pathophysiology. <\/a><\/p>\n

The condition is \u201ca worldwide hidden health threat that is associated with progressive loss of kidney functions without showing any initial symptoms until reaching end-stage rental failure, eventually leading to death,\u201d the researchers wrote.<\/p>\n

Most people affected by the disease are Latino men, between the ages of 20 and 60, who work under extreme conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Central America, CKDu is hypothesized to be associated with occupational and environmental exposures mainly affecting young men working in lowland agricultural settings, most notably sugarcane harvesters,\u201d researchers published in a 2023 public health journal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not completely clear why the condition disproportionally impacts agricultural workers and those doing intense physical labor. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe population is so vulnerable and has such limited access to health services at all that screening for kidney disease is not on the radar,\u201d epidemiologist Rebecca Fischer told Texas Monthly. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a disease of poverty. It\u2019s a neglected disease, in a neglected population in a neglected part of the world, in impoverished communities that, frankly, many people are not paying attention to.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"HealthHealth officials in Texas have reported an increase in CKDu cases, though it was not immediately clear how many recent cases there have been (AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n

It was not immediately clear how many CKDu cases have recently been found in Texas, though Ricardo Nuila, an internist at Houston\u2019s Ben Taub Hospital, told Texas Monthly he\u2019d seen instances of it nearly every day. <\/p>\n

Nuila wasn\u2019t the only one noticing in increase in cases. His colleague, Sreedhar Mandayam, a nephrologist at the hospital, noticed an alarming spike in emergency-dialysis patients who were young men, many undocumented, from Central America or Mexico. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe and lots of other people were beginning to wonder, \u2018Why is this happening?\u2019\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

As part of a research project, Fischer, the epidemiologist, began to ask these patients questions when they came in to the hospital about where they grew up, where they lived and worked. Nearly all of the men fit the profile of a CKDu patient \u2014 someone who did manual labor, was under 40 and originally from Central America or Mexico. <\/p>\n

Medical records from the hospital between 2012 and 2015 showed that out of 346 cases of kidney failure in an uninsured or undocumented patient, 17 had no identifiable cause, according to Texas Monthly. <\/p>\n

That figure was shocking to researchers, who say it suggests thousands of emergency-dialysis visits to Texas hospitals each year could be attributable to CKDu. There was no data showing exactly how many of those cases resulted in death.<\/p>\n

Fisher said more research is needed to get to the bottom of the disease. \u201cIt\u2019s such a fascinating medical problem, right? A mystery to solve, and so many people want to solve it,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are quite far, still, from understanding exactly what\u2019s going on.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":778051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-778050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=778050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/778050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/778051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=778050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=778050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=778050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}