MEN'S PALACE || on Kidney Health with Dr. Isaac Dogor || 19TH JULY 2026

[00:00:03]Men's movement member Isaac >> [applause] >> You are welcome.

[00:00:35]We are all ears for you. Men of God.

[00:00:40]>> Men of God.

[00:00:42]>> Mina.

[00:00:50]I am so happy to be back.

[00:00:53]This week I enjoyed our discussion in the previous segment. I believe that we've all learned one or two things that we have started working on as far as our bodies are concerned.

[00:01:11]I'm still waiting for some of you to visit us in the clinic so that you can have that thorough medical checkup and it will help you for the rest of the year. Today we are looking at our kidneys.

[00:01:31]Our kidneys engine orans world kidney day. Every March on the 12th of March is World Kidney Day. It tells you that the kidneys are so important.

[00:02:08]That is why the medical world will decide to set a whole day aside so that we can talk about the kidney for people to know how important it is.

[00:02:24]Kidneys.

[00:02:36]Now kidneys kidney beans the way beans that is how the kidneys actually look like. Now they are very small. If you look at the body compared to the size of the kidney, they are very small and they are usually at the back, they are towards the back. The kidneys are towards the back under the rib cage, the last ribs. You see the the poles of the kidneys hiding under the the the ribs behind. Okay. Now some people may not have two kidneys.

[00:03:27]Somebody can come with just one. That is natural. Uh-huh. And then some people too have kidneys that are not in their right positions. You see them in the pelvis. So pelvic kidneys and natural most often whether it is just one or pelvic kidneys once there is no problem with it should be able to function very well.

[00:03:56]We want to first look at how important the kidneys are. Kidney, kidney, kidney, kidney.

[00:04:05]Kidney body.

[00:04:10]Now the kidneys probably are one of the most important organs in the body.

[00:04:21]environment rubbish.

[00:04:35]So one of the key things that the kidneys does for the body is to be like the zoom lion of the body to clear waste to clear waste out of the body.

[00:04:52]A lot of things that we eat, we drink, medicine that we take, a lot of them have to be cleared from the system after we have used it. And it is the kidneys that act like the se that is one of its key roles. In fact, apart from the kidney, only few other organs do some form of excretion like the skin. The skin actually excretes water which the kidney is the major excretor buttomy excess water from the body.

[00:05:40]Excretion is a function of the kidney.

[00:05:46]In our previous discussion, the kidney is the main regulator of blood pressure in the body.

[00:06:01]Blood pressure control blood pressure. Kidney release.

[00:06:24]One of the things that happen to you when your kidneys are damaged is that almost always you will develop high blood pressure.

[00:06:35]That is one of the functions. It regulates blood pressure level, blood level, red blood cells, red blood cells. But kidneys signals blood cells. See, one of the things that again you see in people who have kidney issues is that they always have very low levels of blood.

[00:07:30]supplements. One of the things that we like so much is vitamin D supplements, calcium supplements, those things. The body actually in our environment does not need those supplements if your kidneys are very well because the kidneys actually regulate vitamin D production. In the tropics where we have a lot of sunshine, the kidneys can use the sun's ray to make sure that your body have enough vitamin D to make your bones very strong. And these are some of the key things that the kidney does for us. blood pressure control, filtering the blood and removing toxins, helping us in producing blood cells and also helping in vitamin D production.

[00:08:24]In fact, body if you look at the size of the kidney and the amount of blood that it receives per minute, you realize that it is a very important organ. about 25% when your B your your heart pumps blood about 25% of them goes to the kidneys it tells you how important the kidneys are now statistics let's come to Ghana and look at the issue of kidney disease in Ghana 100 people 13 of them have some kidney problem.

[00:09:20]13 13 people out of those people have some kidney problem. Now about kidney problem. The reason why we are so concerned particularly in Ghana is the age group that usually have the kidney diseases. We have realized that it rather affect the most productive age group which is between the ages of 20 and 50. Most of our kidney problems are in this age group. That is why it is very important that we talk about it because if you look at it that's the most productive years for anybody 20 to 50 years. Unfortunately most of the kidney problems are within that age group and we also realize that men in Ghana have more kidney issues compared to the women. That is why this is very important for us as men. Maybe as we go on you come to realize why the condition is more common in men than in women. Again statistics wise kidney disease prevalence Ghana compare with the average for other countries.

[00:10:52]attain other nations are globally the average prevalence of kidney disease is about 10%.

[00:11:05]But Ghana's statistics stands at about 13.3 which means that more Ghanaians have kidney issues compared to the average that we have worldwide. That is why we have to pay attention to our kidneys.

[00:11:26]Now, assassins. We call them twin assassins.

[00:11:44]Assassins are usually trained specialist special mission.

[00:11:56]They do it so well that usually they don't leave traces.

[00:12:10]Kidney problems two conditions assassins.

[00:12:21]The second major one is diabetes. And when you come to the statistics globally, we are saying that these two conditions high blood pressure and a high blood sugar. These two conditions alone accounts for 70% of all kidney diseases worldwide.

[00:12:43]Let's come to Ghana. When you come to Ghana, we are saying that 39.9 almost 40% of all our kidney cases are linked to high blood pressure.

[00:12:58]84 out of 10 kidney patients in Ghana.

[00:13:02]The problem was because they have high blood pressure that they didn't manage.

[00:13:10]And we call these two conditions assassins because they are silent. In our previous discussion, we said that high blood pressure, high blood sugar, they are conditions that usually will not give you any signals. So if you are watching your dashboard, you may miss it.

[00:13:31]Unfortunately, they are the major causes of kidney disease in Ghana. Then we have other causes.

[00:13:40]Last discussion heral medicine issues came up briefly and today too we are faced with this same herbal medicine issues.

[00:13:53]Now we know that 35% of acute kidney failure in Ghana is from herbal medicine.

[00:14:04]And you now begin to understand why kidney disease is more common in men.

[00:14:10]When you look at our consumption of herbal medicines in Ghana, you see that the men mostly go for the concoctions that they tell us boost our strength as men.

[00:14:27]Vitality Chrome or cranny bottle.

[00:14:43]Those concoctions account for about 35% of all acute kidney failures in Ghana and we must pay attention to them as we talk about kidney health. If you have problem with erectile issues, please the solution is not the beatest that they sell out there. If you come to your hospital and you go and see those who take care of men's health and you tell them that you have a problem with erection, they have ways of managing them so that you don't go on drinking the concoctions just in an attempt to have some enhancement which most of the time is very transient which means that every time you have to be taking such preparations in order to be able to do what you are supposed to do as a man.

[00:15:50]Herbal medicine. And then we are talking about the contaminations these days. Issues with galami, contamination of water, contamination of our food, heavy metals and all these things are going into our system and they are contributing to the increasing risk of kidney disease that we are seeing in Ghana. The other thing that we talk about when it comes to kidney health has to do with diet.

[00:16:20]Again, last week we spoke about salt.

[00:16:25]And if you remember, we said that salt and hypertension are related.

[00:16:33]So if you eat so much salt, what you are going to do eventually is that you would cause your blood pressure to go up. And like we have seen blood pressure is a a silent assassin when it comes to kidney disease.

[00:17:02]kidney.

[00:17:05]So we stress again when it comes to kidney health that let's watch the diet salt and most of the things that we put in our food like we have shared some time ago has salt contents the kobi the monony the seasonings they have so much salt and the more we indulge in them the likely we are to have blood pressure issues that will eventually lead to the damage to our kidneys. Then hydration a day about 3 L of water.

[00:17:54]If you starve your kidneys of water for a long time, the kidneys will eventually fail.

[00:18:03]So how it starts is that you may have an acute failure. If that acute failure is not corrected then it moves on to total failure. In water is important apart from you drinking enough water. Any time that for a reason you lose so much water at that point because you are losing so much fluid. What happens naturally is that the kidney the blood flow to the kidneys will reduce normal the body will try to readjust the fluid distribution once you are losing so much water because you are vomiting or you are having acute diarrhea kidney arteries shrink so that other parts of the body can use the replacement drugtood, vomiting, but one rehydrating losses to me at this time.

[00:19:40]Few months later, any time we lose water, please make sure that you rehydrate yourselves adequately. And we always say five, six times for for for the 20th time before you decide to go to the hospital. Once it is becoming too much that you cannot replace the the fluid the way it is coming, you you really have to go. Most of the time what do we do? We put fluid on you is to protect your kidneys.

[00:20:29]There are other things that can give you kidney problems apart from uh hydration issues. They are infections, HIV, viruses, kidney problem, HIV, they are at higher risk of developing kidney problems. If you have hepatitis B, hepatitis C, your risk of developing kidney problems are high. We know in Ghana that most of the people who have to go for diialysis at least 3.9% are people who have these infections.

[00:21:03]either they have HIV or they are viral hepatitis screening these things have to be part once a year general screening try and do these viruses as part of the screening so that if you have the infection they can monitor and see whether some form of treatment can be given so that your kidneys are protected kidney how does it show we had kidney problem.

[00:21:39]The first thing I will say is that please don't wait to begin to see signs and symptoms of kidney disease because by the time you actually begin to see the signs and symptoms, it means that you are almost at the end stage of the kidney problem.

[00:22:08]So kidney disease is one of the things that we don't watch the dashboard for.

[00:22:13]You have to be doing your annual checks and anytime you do an annual check, kidney check is one of them. It we rather admonish you to do the kidney function test rather than wait for symptoms. But if it happens, what are some of the things that you are likely to see? A key one is the swellings.

[00:22:42]And most of the time if it is a major organ is both legs, not one leg. It starts usually with just the ankle. the ankle area as you go through the day.

[00:23:06]Kidney disease, but it is one of the main conditions that can give you swelling.

[00:23:16]Then you can actually see some changes in your urine as well.

[00:23:25]And now the color is not the usual yellowish color that you see when you are dehydrated. It's dark colored a Coca-Cola dark colored urine. When you begin to see that, know that there is a problem with your kidney.

[00:23:45]So the person gets tired easily when he walks a little. He's panting for breath.

[00:23:51]Why that is happening is that now So when you are getting easily fatigued and you are seeing these signs of swellings of the ankle, please pay attention. Your kidneys may just be giving you signals that they are failing.

[00:24:25]So how do we prevent kidney problems?

[00:24:31]the Eddie bar. It means that you can actually put a stop to it. And we have looked at the assassins of kidney disease. We have mentioned two of them, the critical ones. One is blood pressure and the other one is our blood sugar. So it is about monitoring some of these risk factors.

[00:24:56]Monitoring your blood pressure. Again we will keep stressing that blood pressure is silent blood pressure in the excess of 200 and you will feel fine.

[00:25:13]Nothing will be happening to you as far as the way you feel is concerned. Your head is not aching you. You are not feeling dizzy. Nothing.

[00:25:22]That is why such people when they by any means get to the hospital or a pharmacy and they check the blood pressure and they tell them your blood pressure is high or no signals.

[00:25:38]The way out is to modifi it. Then you have to look at your diet mainly salt. When it comes to blood pressure and kidney disease, salt is what we talk about. And we looked at the foods that are very high in salt content. We must manage our diet. Then some medications for a long time. Orthodox medicine.

[00:26:11]Orthodox medicine for a very long time.

[00:26:17]kidney mainly some of the painkillers mainly some of the painkillers because of one reason or the other painkillers a lot you have to be careful I always say generally that if you have to take painkiller probably the safest is paracetam but generally top painiller drugstore ALL THOSE TYPES OF painkillers are not healthy for the kidney when you use them for the long time.

[00:27:05]They are NSAIDs. We call them NSAIDs.

[00:27:07]nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

[00:27:13]Very good when it comes to pain relief within an hour.

[00:27:22]But if you take that medicine repeatedly over a long period of time, please be careful. Apart from the herbal medicines, the pain medications that we take over the counter, let's watch them because it may affect our kidney.

[00:28:01]diialysis issues.

[00:28:05]It is not just about the money. Look at the age group that I just talked about that usually have this kidney problem 20 to 50.

[00:28:19]diialysis. You would virtually waste your time most of the time in the hospital. You are either going two or three times a week.

[00:28:31]You are always tired because your blood levels will be very low. So it is not a disease that we should wish for ourselves.

[00:28:40]And the way not to wish it for ourselves is to make sure that we protect our kidneys. The way to protect the kidneys is to make sure that we check our blood pressures. We check our blood sugars. We drink fluids as much as possible so that the body is well hydrated. And above all, we continue to do our checkups so that we can find the issues very early and help the body to recover.

[00:29:21]appointment this year for health check.

[00:29:24]This is the time to do it. Walk into a hospital. Walk into a wellness center.

[00:29:32]Let them do a body check for you. And as part of it, let them do your kidney function test so that if there is a problem, they can direct you to the experts who will help you to manage the condition. Thank you very much for your audience. We will now take questions.

[00:29:54]Men of God.

[00:29:58]>> Men of God.

[00:30:03]>> Action.

[00:30:04]>> Action.

[00:30:05]>> Action. N.

[00:30:11]Wow.

[00:30:20]Dr. Amen. Um so [music] [music] first three Men of God, be strong in the Lord symptoms.

[00:31:29]It is.

[00:31:37]Half of us.

[00:31:39]More than half.

[00:31:53]blanket. Change the oil. Change the oil.

[00:31:57]any favorite pie.

[00:32:01][laughter] Change the oil.

[00:32:24]How often we should change it now? how moderate he should be.

[00:32:29]Men of God, >> be strong in the Lord.

[00:33:03]men of God.

[00:33:06]>> Today we've claimed that BP and then diabetes are the most cause of kidney failures.

[00:33:18]The kidney fights hard to take out the waste product. But I would like to know what part that the pinkrass play to help the kidney function or the kidney play together with pink. Thank you.

[00:33:44]Salt.

[00:33:48]Red meat.

[00:34:06]Every morning [clears throat] I don't know, sir.

[00:34:43]>> [applause] >> Okay. So, in fact, salt is one of the most dangerous things to the body. Don't make h don't let anybody confuse you about it. Research has shown that especially you have asked why we I haven't spoken about meat and other things. When it comes to blood pressure the most important food item is salt.

[00:35:20]me when I was very young, very very young, my grandmother went to the hospital one day and came back and then they said people not to eat salt again is as soon those days as soon as you have EP they will tell you don't eat salt it is because we know that salt makes it very difficult for you to control blood pressure so there is no confusion about it these days we don't say that because now because of the advancement in medicine uh we don't actually say don't eat salt we say reduce the quantity ity so that you at least you can taste your food is because the medicines are so effective but salt and BP no two ways about it. Now red meat does not cause kidney failure. Okay again let me say that nobody says you cannot eat meat. People stretch some of these things.

[00:36:38]There's nothing like that. Everything is moderation.

[00:36:43]Everything is moderation.

[00:36:49]Meat just do it in moderation. It does not cause kidney issues. That is what I will say. Now your issue with our people in the rural areas h is not strained. In fact, this week, earlier uh last week, somebody showed me a picture of one of our church members whose legs, the two legs are swollen.

[00:37:23]So, all the way to the knee, both legs.

[00:37:27]And you realize that they've put some things on it and they say spiritual Either the person's heart has failed or the kidneys are in trouble.

[00:37:57]I was telling them said let the person go to the hospital so that they see which of the organs is is failing because you can be helped.

[00:38:14]Areas some of these things they shouldn't overspiritualize it. We are Christians by all means when you are unwell whether it is headache or what you should pray but after you have prayed go to the hospital because if you go to the hospital there is some help that you can get with that.

[00:38:46]if you have two legs solely is one of three things. Either your kidneys, either your heart or your liver. Those three organs are the key organs that control fluid until once you see both legs swollen is one of those three organs. And if you go to the hospital, they will be able to tell where the problem is, then they can they can help the people. So let's educate our brothers in the villages so that they visit the hospital instead of attributing everything to spiritual forces. Then somebody says something about engine checking the engine and kidney failure.

[00:39:30]You see one of the things that we have realized which is very common those who are opened the patients that are opened they will tell you when they come to the hospital the men and they have high blood pressure and you want to put them on blood pressure medicine the first thing they will say is that we have heard that if you take the BP medicine it will take your gun away from you that is the concern those who are free with you would say it. Others won't say anything, but in their minds, they will not take the BP medicine. They say, and they'll tell you something must kill a man. They would rather go to the grave with their guns than lose it.

[00:40:16]But this is [laughter] this is actually the truth. High blood pressure in itself can give you erectile issues. Blood pressure in itself can give you erectile issues in you may decide that you will not take the medicine. It will not solve your erectile problems. That is why you would have to be taking lawyer going to aboti for those their concoctions which will eventually give you problem. We know that some of the BP medicines actually affect erection. That one we know. Okay.

[00:40:54]But it is not everybody is individual. So in selecting blood pressure medicines, we select medications based on individuals. So most of the time when you go, they will tell you that this medicine when you start it, this one you may have headache. This one you may have blood vision. This one may affect your erection. If you go and you experience any of those symptoms, come back and tell us.

[00:41:24]BP medicines, BP different.

[00:41:30]The only thing is that some work very well. So we would always want to start with them.

[00:41:40]It takes your gun away. If you come back and tell us so that you don't go off the medicine trying to save your vitality and end up getting a stroke.

[00:42:05]If the medicine gives you any issues, please just go back to your doctor and let him know when I started is affecting my vitality. So, Now with the pancreas, when it comes to the pancreas, the work of the pancreas mainly has to do with insulin production for sugar control. pancreas.

[00:42:38]But the key function of the pancreas and it produces insulin, diabetes, insulin. Usually in diabetes, what happens is that there's a problem with that insulin production of the pancreas.

[00:42:59]is either say pancreas or producing insulin but the pancreas produces insulin that helps regulate the blood sugar and we have seen that if you don't control your blood sugar very well you can have kidney disease so that is the link thank you >> night eating late night eating >> yes late night eating Eating does not directly affect kidney health. What it does is that it makes you put on weight which is a risk factor for both hypertension and diabetes. So you can see the loop. The more you eat late, the more you are likely to put on excess weight. And as long as your BMI is going up beyond what it's supposed to be, your risk of developing high blood pressure and diabetes is high, that is why the late eating is not advised. I know very well that most of us work and get home very late. Generally, it's a problem.

[00:44:11]But we always say that look at it. If it is possible to get a good lunch in your workplace, then eat your heavy meal at work so that when you get home, you don't go and eat that bowl of fufu at 9:00 p.m.

[00:44:31]You get something lighter. Otherwise, you end up putting on a lot of weight, which would go a long way to worry you health-wise. So, late eating my body.

[00:44:47]Thank you.

[00:44:47]>> Amen.

[00:45:01]hospital.

[00:45:27]But yet still kidney. a mommy in fact.

[00:46:04]But the way but then reporting days like me.

[00:46:54]The next hospital released.

[00:47:25]Amen.

[00:47:36]chronic disease and yet maintain Amen. Amen.

[00:48:26]outside lower pressure.

[00:48:41]Amen.

[00:48:48]is actually a summary of the presentation symptoms.

[00:49:06]It tells you the risk factors that we are talking about. So I think that is a good battress for what we have discussed. Now kidney disease no let's be clear like I said a lot of people have kidney disease but it's not everybody with kidney disease that will end up with diialysis.

[00:49:27]The kidneys are resilient organs.

[00:49:32]In fact you can survive on probably a quarter of a functioning kidney.

[00:49:39]So by the time we say go to diialysis is a long time. The person may have had the chronic kidney disease is in stages.

[00:49:52]Condemn.

[00:49:54]Uhhuh. And the good thing too is that earlier stages of kidney failure, you can actually if it has not passed, you can actually reverse some of the damage and slow down further progression like she has done. Now she's taking the BP medicine. So very likely the the progress of distraction will now be off because the blood pressure now is controlled and she's not taking the the medicine that may have been compounding the issue. So that is why we have to take the medicines control the numbers because if we do the distraction can be slowed down diialysis point people have chronic kidney disease and sebio something else killed them not the kidney we just have to make sure that we take our medications now uh kidney uh donors Ghana is now putting up legislation and other things to regulate how these things are are done. It's not like we don't have people in Ghana who can give kidney. We have but really the legal framework is not there like happens in some of the countries that they have been going to illegal harvesting.

[00:51:31]later on other countries and we have to make sure that there is regulations before some of these things can be done and I'm sure that gradually we would get there as for the personnel to do the transplant now we have them inhouse and once those things are put in place there shouldn't be uh any problem the last one was on low pressure. Yes, some people generally have low pressures.

[00:52:05]In fact, we call them special patients.

[00:52:08]And if you are one of those people, you need to know yourself. Know your pressure. Generally you see oh the normal blood pressure is uh anything the top one uh 100 100 is normal even though we mention 120 but anything from 100 all the way to 120 it's fine but some people's blood pressures are lower than 100 and it is normal is they are normal hospital 85 somethingerience as a health professional because in your attempt to help that person you will harm the person.

[00:52:54]You have to know your reading your normal reading. If your presses are generally low pressure if your pressures are generally normal at very low levels. So know whether your pressure is generally low or not. If you have low pressure, we don't usually treat it.

[00:53:28]it. You don't need to treat it. If your pressures are generally low, we don't treat. People tell oh go and take salt because we say salt raises. Oh, if your pressures are generally low, that is your low normal is fine. Before we would treat a low pressure, you must be having clinical symptoms of low pressure. The key ones are the dizziness that comes with it. The person feels laded. So generally if your pressures around 120 normally and for a reason is so dehydrated and it drops you see that the person is laded very tired easily.

[00:54:14]When it happens like that, we treat it and there is a way we treat it. And if you have low pressures and you know that my readings are generally low in fact if you reach the hospital, let them know because I have seen such instances in the emergency rooms where people attempted to correct low pressures and they ended up flooding the person's lungs with excess fluid.

[00:54:53]I saw that hospital for days. So just know your numbers. If yours is low, that is it. There's no need to treat it.

[00:55:00]Thank you very much.

[00:55:07]You don't fix what is not broken. Men of [screaming] God.

[00:55:14]>> Men of God.

[00:55:15]>> Men of God.

[00:55:18]>> Mean action.

[00:55:20]>> Action.

[00:55:21]>> Action.

[00:55:22]>> Action. N.

[00:55:25]Wow. It's been another great great time talking about our health. And this time it is our kidney. Your kidney.

[00:55:51]Men's polic Dr. Isaac dog apostle Emmanuel Men's movement executive national executive TV crew Tv is the official television station of the Apostolic Church Ghana.

[00:57:01]successful the linguist of the men's palace pastor.

[00:57:11]Men of God.

[00:57:14]>> Men of God.

[00:57:16]>> Minab.

[00:57:17]>> Action.

[00:57:18]>> Action.

[00:57:19]>> Action. N.

[00:57:29]>> Tac TV. [music] Belt in the globe with the gospel.

[00:57:35]>> You won't believe her response. Really?

[00:57:39]It was a big no. my sister.

[00:57:41][clears throat] [music] This is just the tip of the iceberg. Get into a comfortable seat. I mean, I want to hear you. I want to I want to hear.

[00:58:05][laughter] >> So, how can we get to hear more of these interesting stories? Just join the ladies lounge.

[00:58:13]>> Ladies lounge?

[00:58:14]>> Oh, more to be told. What is it about?

[00:58:17]Ladies lounge.

[00:58:21]I will me.