Word: renal
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DIED. JAIME CARDINAL SIN, 76, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila who used his moral authority to propel the "people power" revolts in the Philippines that peacefully brought down the presidencies of Ferdinand Marcos and, more recently, Joseph Estrada; of renal failure; in Manila. After Marcos called for and won a snap election in 1986 that was widely suspected to be fraudulent, Sin took to the airwaves, rallying the country of devout Catholics to join a military faction that had mutinied against Marcos. After a three-day standoff, Marcos fled. Sin stepped in again to help oust the corrupt Estrada...
...kidneys too play a big role. The urinary and renal systems govern not only the quantity of water that is kept or dumped by the body but also its composition. Drain or retain too much sugar, potassium or countless other essential components, and the chemistry of the whole body goes awry. One of the things the kidneys keep an especially close watch on is salt. The more sodium you hold, the more water your body retains, storing it first in the bloodstream and then off-loading it into tissues. When your system gets waterlogged, overfilled vessels feel the strain...
...dialysis machine. Because of poverty and poor diet, the Pintupi have one of the highest rates of kidney failure in the country. "Our rates of dialysis are 40 times the national average," says Dr. Paul Rivalland, who started as a general practitioner in Kintore 20 years ago. End-stage renal disease depletes the body's ability to filter impurities in the blood and fight off infections. But while it has struck people as young as 19, it has ravaged the ranks of Pintupi elders, keepers of traditional law and culture. "They do so much to hold the community together," says...
...been able to make work in the desert," he said. Undeterred, Rivalland had his "kidney committee" visit the Royal Perth Hospital's remote dialysis center in Broome, which helps around 50 Aboriginal patients in the bush. "You can do it anywhere," he insists. "Osama bin Laden is on renal dialysis. If he could do it in the caves, we can do it in Kintore...
...extinction. Nearly every resident of this swampy, 1,000-strong hamlet in the central Chinese province of Hunan is infected by the parasitic worm Schistosoma japonicum. It spreads through the bloodstream, lays eggs in the liver and bladder, wriggles into the brain or embeds itself in the spine. Renal failure and paralysis may follow; death is painful and untimely. That is the grim fate awaiting Xinmin villager Wang Zengkun. The 45-year-old rice farmer first experienced the stomach cramps and bloody diarrhea that signal schistosomiasis three years ago. For a while, Wang fought the disease by spending his life...