Editor’s note: The open access article with our most recent clinical trial results has been published online. In addition, since kidney transplant is a part of the kidney disease experience, we felt compelled to share with our readers a wonderful story about the wonders of the National Kidney Registry, published on November 18, 2013 in The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Article 1: A Chain of Life
As the winter descends on us here in Philadelphia, it is important to keep warm. It’s common knowledge that the circulation of the blood and the pumping of our heart are of vital importance to maintain our core body temperature. But it is also important not to forget the influence our brain and the nervous system can have on the heart rate and the circulation – through various hormones, the vessels can be constricted, retaining more heat in the body, or dilated, releasing it. And, finally, the last link in this chain are some external stimuli that invoke positive emotions – affection, love, compassion, joy – thus making the heart beat faster.
So, it is always literally heart-warming to come across such inspiring articles as the one published in the local newspaper, Philadelphia Inquirer, this past Monday, November 18, 2013. Entitled The Other Links in a Chain of Life, the article describes the miracles of the National Kidney Registry (NKR) and the chains of kidney donations that sometimes, albeit rarely, can reach as many as 30 kidney swaps between eligible donor-recipient pairs. (Read the first part of the story.) The Story of NKR starts in 2007, when a New York businessman Garet Hil wanted to donate a kidney to his daughter, but was not compatible. In his extensive search for a compatible donor, he found out that hospitals did not have integrated databases or registries of all the potential donors, making it even more difficult to find a match.
Then Hil changed his life. He started the NKR, hoping to grow a common database, to increase the quality, speed, and number of living-donor transplants. NKR started its first chain Valentine’s Day 2008. The average is five transplants per chain. One chain in 2012 triggered 30 kidney transplants over six months. Another this year led to 28, all within 40 days, and that one began with an altruistic donor who got the idea from watching The Simpsons. NKR now
has 75 participating hospitals, including [Thomas] Jefferson [University (TJU) hospital in Philadelphia], and is growing.
– Philadelphia Inquirer, Nov 18, 2013
James “Scott” DeVinney and his wife, Jean, back home in Margate, N.J., two weeks after he received his new kidney and the day before their 26th wedding anniversary. Photo: Inquirer photographer David M. Warren
Since kidney transplant is a part of the kidney disease experience, we felt compelled to share this story with our followers – after all, all of us could use a little warmth in our heart, literally and figuratively, whether we live in Philadelphia, PA or Phoenix, AZ.
Article 2: The results of Kibow’s clinical study of CKD patients in collaboration with TJU published in Journal of Nephrology & Therapeutics.
Although it was a happy coincidence, it’s only fitting to have the preceding story as a lead-in, given that Kibow has been collaborating with TJU Divison of Nephrology since its very founding. In fact, the work done in 1990s by the
scientists at TJU – particularly the late Dr. Michael Simenhoff (may his soul rest in peace) and his colleague Stephen Dunn – on Lactobacillus acidophilus and its ability to significantly reduce the levels of toxic carcinogenic amines in the blood of dialysis patients with small bowel bacterial overgrowth (SBBO – when bacteria from the large intestine expand into and colonize the small intestine, with pathological effects) is one of the sources that had
inspired Kibow to pursue this line of research and to explore the potential of using probiotic bacteria to maintain kidney health. Kibow had collaborated with TJU in the past, conducting one of its animal studies there, and turned to TJU again in 2011-2012 to conduct a small-scale (28 patients) double blind,controlled clinical trial of Renadyl™ in Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) patients in stages 3 and 4. The results of that study have been fully analyzed
and now, we are happy to inform you, published online.
