Reliable governance and health financing are critical to the abilities of health systems in different countries to sustainably meet the health needs of their peoples, including those with kidney disease. A comprehensive understanding of existing systems and infrastructure is therefore necessary to globally identify gaps in kidney care and prioritize areas for improvement. This multinational, cross-sectional survey, conducted by the ISN as part of the Global Kidney Health Atlas, examined the oversight, financing, and perceived quality of infrastructure for kidney care across the world. Overall, 125 countries, comprising 93% of the world's population, responded to the entire survey, with 122 countries responding to questions pertaining to this domain. National oversight of kidney care was most common in high-income countries while individual hospital oversight was most common in low-income countries. Parts of Africa and the Middle East appeared to have no organized oversight system. The proportion of countries in which health care system coverage for people with kidney disease was publicly funded and free varied for AKI (56%), nondialysis chronic kidney disease (40%), dialysis (63%), and kidney transplantation (57%), but was much less common in lower income countries, particularly Africa and Southeast Asia,
Uric acid is associated with hypertension and increased renin–angiotensin system activity, although this relationship diminishes after chronic exposure to high levels. Uric acid is more strongly associated with poor outcomes in women compared to men, although whether this is due to a sex‐specific uric acid‐mediated pathophysiology or reflects sex differences in baseline uric acid levels remains unknown. We examined the association between uric acid and vascular measures at baseline and in response to angiotensin‐II challenge in young healthy humans. Fifty‐two subjects (17 men, 35 premenopausal women) were studied in high‐salt balance. Serum uric acid levels were significantly higher in men compared to women (328 ± 14 μmol/L vs. 248 ± 10 μmol/L, P < 0.001), although all values were within normal sex‐specific range. Men demonstrated no association between uric acid and blood pressure, either at baseline or in response to angiotensin‐II. In stark contrast, a significant association was observed between uric acid and blood pressure at baseline (systolic blood pressure, P = 0.005; diastolic blood pressure, P = 0.02) and in response to angiotensin‐II (systolic blood pressure, P = 0.035; diastolic blood pressure, P = 0.056) in women. However, this sex difference lost significance after adjustment for baseline uric acid. When all subjects were stratified according to high (>300 μmol/L) or low (≤300 μmol/L) uric acid levels, only the low uric acid group showed a positive association between uric acid and measures of vascular tone at baseline and in response to angiotensin‐II. Differences in uric acid‐mediated outcomes between men and women likely reflect differences in exposure to increased uric acid levels, rather than a sex‐specific uric acid‐mediated pathophysiology.
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