A mysterious form of\u00a0kidney disease\u00a0that has devastated young to middle-aged agricultural workers in Central America and South Asia appears to have surfaced in Texas.<\/p>\n
Known as chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) \u2014 or Mesoamerican nephropathy \u2014 the condition continues to baffle researchers, as some otherwise healthy adults develop kidney failure without having any of the traditional risk factors.<\/p>\n
Chronic kidney disease can range from mild to severe, potentially causing fluid buildup and increasing the risk of\u00a0high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and premature death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.<\/p>\n
But unlike typical cases, CKDu develops without common risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension and glomerulonephritis, a disease that inflames and damages the kidneys\u2019 filtering units, according to Dr. Gokul Paidi, a family medicine physician at Community Healthcare Network in New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt typically strikes young to middle-aged adults, more often men, who work in agriculture and manual labor in hot, low-resource regions,\u201d he told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
Several regional kidney diseases have been described over the decades, although not all are considered CKDu.<\/p>\n
Derek Emadi works on his farm near Lockhart, Texas, on Thursday, June 4, 2026. Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images<\/p>\n
\u201cBalkan endemic nephropathy has been documented since the 1950s; Itai itai disease in Japan was tied to cadmium-contaminated rice; and Sri Lanka nephropathy has been studied since the 1990s,\u201d said Paidi, who has published a review on the condition.<\/p>\n
Mesoamerican nephropathy \u2013 which was first described among sugarcane workers in\u00a0El Salvador and Nicaragua\u00a0in the late 1990s \u2013 is the form now being reported in the U.S., he noted.<\/p>\n
Other locations have reported similar types of local epidemics, including Sri Lanka, India, rural Thailand and the Tierra Blanca area in Mexico, according to previous research.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s emerging is that these are likely related conditions, essentially clusters of the same underlying disease process showing up in different farming and industrial regions around the world,\u201d Paidi said.<\/p>\n
Physicians at Houston\u00a0safety-net hospitals, including Ben Taub, have treated otherwise healthy men in their 20s and 30s who presented with kidney failure \u2014 some with \u201cCoca-Cola-colored urine,\u201d according to Texas Monthly.<\/p>\n
They reportedly don\u2019t have any of the typical risk factors that cause kidney disease, like\u00a0high blood pressure\u00a0or diabetes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s striking about the Texas cases is how closely they mirror what we saw originally in Central America,\u201d Paidi noted.<\/p>\n
The patients are largely\u00a0undocumented laborers\u00a0from Mexico and Central America working in construction, roofing, and outdoor trades in extreme heat \u2013 jobs where water breaks are often limited, he added.<\/p>\n
According to a review of Harris County hospital records cited by Texas Monthly, roughly one in six emergency dialysis cases in uninsured or undocumented patients had no identifiable cause, \u201cwhich is consistent with CKDu,\u201d Paidi told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
Some patients are reluctant to seek care or participate in research because of their immigration status, making it harder to track the disease in Texas and detect kidney damage before it becomes irreversible, experts say.<\/p>\n
A mysterious form of\u00a0kidney disease\u00a0that has devastated young to middle-aged agricultural workers in Central America and South Asia appears to have surfaced in Texas. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Experts believe a combination of occupational and environmental factors may gradually damage the kidneys. Getty Images<\/p>\n
Common symptoms of CKDu<\/p>\n
Experts refer to CKDu as a \u201csilent disease\u201d because most patients don\u2019t initially complain of any symptoms.<\/p>\n
Most patients \u2013 especially those who work in sugarcane fields \u2013 learn they have the condition during routine screening\u00a0blood tests, according to Dr. Richard J. Johnson, a leading expert on kidney diseases and emeritus professor of medicine at the University of Colorado.<\/p>\n
\u201cLater, it can cause typical signs of severe chronic kidney disease, including fatigue,\u00a0sleep disturbances, nausea, weakness [and] shortness of breath from anemia,\u201d he told Fox News Digital.<\/p>\n
By the time symptoms appear and the disease is diagnosed, many patients are approaching end-stage kidney disease.<\/p>\n
Many affected people are located in resource-poor regions where dialysis and\u00a0transplants\u00a0are often unaffordable or inaccessible, which can increase the odds of premature death, Paidi noted.<\/p>\n
Potential causes<\/p>\n
Heat stress\u00a0is considered one of the leading suspected drivers of the disease, although its exact cause remains unknown, according to Johnson.<\/p>\n
Experts believe a combination of occupational and environmental factors may gradually damage the kidneys. Strenuous outdoor labor can lead to repeated heat stress and dehydration, potentially compounded by exposure to crop pesticides and smoke from burning sugarcane.<\/p>\n
Workers may also contend with potentially\u00a0unsafe drinking water\u00a0and rely on over-the-counter NSAIDs for pain \u2014 factors that, combined with repeated dehydration and heat stress, could further strain the kidneys, according to Texas Monthly.<\/p>\n
Some experts suggest that improving hydration and shade, reducing work hours, and starting earlier in the day could reduce kidney damage.<\/p>\n
Diagnosis and treatment<\/p>\n
There is no specific test for CKDu. Doctors diagnose it by ruling out other causes of chronic kidney disease, along with a patient\u2019s occupational and environmental exposures, Paidi said.<\/p>\n
\u201cKidney biopsy is the closest thing to a gold standard, but isn\u2019t practical for widespread screening,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
There is no disease-specific treatment for CKDu. Management focuses on controlling blood pressure, avoiding additional kidney injury \u2014 including from NSAIDs \u2014 and using dialysis or kidney transplantation in advanced disease, according to Paidi.<\/p>\n
Some patients receive\u00a0ACE inhibitors\u00a0\u2014 medications commonly used to treat high blood pressure \u2014 but these drugs can sometimes worsen kidney function in people who are dehydrated, Johnson cautioned.<\/p>\n
Chronic kidney disease can range from mild to severe, potentially causing fluid buildup and increasing the risk of\u00a0high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and premature death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. magicmine \u2013 stock.adobe.com<\/p>\n
\u201cDisease often progresses rapidly over a few years, and dialysis and transplantation are rarely available, so mortality is high,\u201d he added \u2013 which highlights the importance of screening for the condition.<\/p>\n
For people living or working in agricultural or outdoor labor jobs, especially in hot climates, Paidi recommends getting kidney function checked with a primary care doctor at least twice a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cA simple blood test for creatinine (a waste product normally filtered from the blood by the kidneys) and a urine test for protein can catch early changes long before symptoms appear,\u201d he advised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mysterious form of\u00a0kidney disease\u00a0that has devastated young to middle-aged agricultural workers in Central America and South Asia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":849138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[8006,97,15080,14834,1022],"class_list":["post-849137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-diseases","tag-health","tag-kidney","tag-kidney-disease","tag-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=849137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/849137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/849138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=849137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=849137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=849137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}