About this Research Topic
As people age, their kidneys exhibit exquisite functional decline and increased susceptibility to exogenous insults. Patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are at risk of several adverse outcomes, such as cachexia, which are more prevalent in people of advanced age.
Cachexia is a complex metabolic disorder and leads to many problems including muscle wasting and extreme weight loss. Apart from CKD, there are also other causes of cachexia like cancer, chronic (cardiac) heart failure, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Cachectic patients also have a higher probability of developing frailty and sarcopenia, as well as geriatric syndromes that were first described in the aged population but later found to be prevalent among other patients too.
Researchers that investigate frailty and sarcopenia, associated with CKD, stand in the forefront of nephrology, and earnestly try to elucidate that these degenerative phenotypes represent a mechanism responsible for poorer outcomes in the cachectic population and might not be susceptible to current treatments. Interdisciplinary collaboration, incorporating not only bench models and clinical medicine, but also geriatrics and nephrology, will expectedly create an insurmountable impact on the care of CKD cachectic patients with these geriatric phenotypes.
We invite investigators to contribute original research articles, clinical or experimental, and review articles that will promote a more in-depth understanding of the origin, the risk factors, and the clinical implications of frailty or sarcopenia in cachectic patients, with a special focus on those who have also a renal dysfunction, as well as experimental approaches to examine the associated mechanisms and/or to treat and ameliorate these conditions.
Topics of interest of this Research Topic include, but are not limited to:
• The evolution, evaluation, and recent understanding of frailty or sarcopenia in various cachectic patients with or without renal dysfunction
• The molecular and genetic aspects of frailty and sarcopenia in the setting of cachectic kidney diseases
• The correlation between experimental and clinical models of frailty or sarcopenia assessment in various clinical settings
Keywords: cachexia, CKD, kidney dysfunction, frailty, sarcopenia, cachectic patients
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.