“Can kidney disease cause low hemoglobin?”
My mother is 70 years old and has been suffering from severe diabetes for almost 32 years. Her sugar levels are highly fluctuating and have gone to high levels like 300 post lunch. Her creatinine levels are high at 5.2 and the doctor says her kidneys are now only working 20%. In her recent blood report, her hemoglobin levels are as low as 7. Could kidney disease be a cause of low hemoglobin?
1 Answer
While there are many causes of anemia (low hemoglobin), end-stage kidney disease (renal failure) is among the more common causes. Kidneys produce a hormone known as erythropoietin (epo for short) which stimulates the bone marrow to produce new red blood cells. Normally, the kidneys help to maintain a normal hemoglobin by producing epo when the hemoglobin is low. If the kidneys develop disease, their production of epo falls off. When the level of epo falls below a critical level, then bone marrow production of red blood cells drops resulting in low hemoglobin (anemia). Fortunately, for the past thirty years, epo has been produced by biopharmaceutical companies, and epo is readily available to reverse the anemia of chronic kidney failure. Much of the epo produced these days is used to help people with chronic kidney failure.
