Smoking with Polycystic Kidney Disease

Can polycystic kidney disease patients smoke? This is a commonly asked question and it is more concerned among men and they want to know weather they should give up smoking and what kind of effects will smoking has on the cysts.

As for PKD patients, they should give up smoking if they are smokers. This is because tobacco contains large amount of nicotine which is a toxic material and it can cause vasoconstriction and arteriosclerosis thus reducing the blood flow in the kidneys and other internal organs. As we know the root reason of renal damages and necrosis is ischemia and hypoxia in the kidneys, therefore tobacco should be avoided.

What is more, we know that hypertension is one of the most common complications of ADPKDS and nearly all the patients will have high blood pressure in the end stage. While smoking will definitely worsen the blood pressure and make it harder to control and worsen the illness conditions. It has been proved that the heart rate will increase by 5-20/min and systolic blood pressure will increase by 10-25mmHg. The nicotine in tobacco will cause increase of heart rate and blood pressure.

Hypertension is one important factor affecting the prognosis of PKD and therefore it is very necessary and important to bring the blood pressure under control so as to slow down the decline rate of renal functions and reduce its mortality.

Smoking is easy to damage the upper respiratory tract and lung and patients will be more susceptible to colds and upper respiratory tract infections which are all deterioration factors of PKD.

Therefore it is recommended that smokers to get rid of smoking and non-smokers to stay away from tobacco so as to avoid aggravation of hypertension and PKD.

Besides limitations on smoking, PKD patients should try to avoid alcohol, caffeine-containing foods and drinks, spicy and excitant foods or polluted foods.