Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Hyperkalemia: How High Potassium Is Recognized and Why It Matters
What causes high potassium, its symptoms, why kidney disease and ACE inhibitors raise it, and when hyperkalemia becomes a medical emergency.
Health & Evidence Library
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Evidence on kidney function, electrolytes, digestive symptoms, liver health, anemia, clotting, and connected diagnostic decisions.
36 guides · Page 1 of 1
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Hemorrhoids and Common Anorectal Problems
Home care for hemorrhoids and anal fissures, how to tell them apart, and the rectal bleeding red flags that mean you should get checked.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Heartburn Relief That Actually Works: Reflux Self-Care and Its Limits
Evidence-based heartburn relief: which self-care steps and medicines work, how antacids, H2 blockers, and PPIs differ, and when to get checked.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Gallstones: When They Need Treatment and When They Do Not
Most gallstones cause no symptoms and are left alone. Learn which ones need surgery, what a gallbladder attack feels like, and the red flags.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Food Intolerance or Food Allergy? How the Two Differ
A food allergy is an immune reaction that can be dangerous; an intolerance is non-immune. How to tell them apart and test wisely.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Chronic Constipation: A Stepwise, Evidence-Based Approach to Relief
How to relieve chronic constipation: start with fiber and fluids, step up to an osmotic then a stimulant laxative, and know the alarm signs that need care.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
What ANNEXA-I Shows About DOAC Reversal Agents
ANNEXA-I found better hematoma control with andexanet than usual care but more thrombosis. Learn what the trial did, what it did not prove, and the US update.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
What Albuminuria Means: Reading a uACR Result
A urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio can reveal kidney damage before eGFR falls. Learn the A1, A2, and A3 categories and why repeat testing matters.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Uncomplicated Diverticulitis and the Antibiotic Question
Trials support selective care without antibiotics for some immunocompetent adults with mild uncomplicated diverticulitis, not for every patient.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Why Ferritin Thresholds for Iron Deficiency Differ
Why WHO, gastroenterology, kidney, and heart-failure guidance use different ferritin cutoffs, and why context and transferrin saturation matter.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
What a Low Platelet Count Does and Does Not Mean
How clinicians confirm thrombocytopenia, distinguish immune thrombocytopenia from urgent alternatives, and interpret bleeding risk and treatment evidence.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Thrombophilia Testing: Why a Larger Panel May Not Improve the Decision
When inherited and acquired clotting tests can change care, when they add little, and why clot context and assay timing matter.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
The Gut-Liver Axis, Explained
The gut and liver exchange nutrients, bile acids, microbial products, and immune signals. The gut-liver axis explains the route, not a single disease.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Resmetirom and Accelerated Approval for MASH
How resmetirom became the first FDA-approved MASH treatment, what its biopsy endpoints showed, and what accelerated approval still requires.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Reading the 4Ts Score for Heparin-Induced Thrombocytopenia
How the 4Ts score estimates pretest probability of HIT from platelet fall, timing, thrombosis, and alternative causes, and how it guides laboratory testing.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
How to Read the SGLT2 Inhibitor Kidney Trials
DAPA-CKD and EMPA-KIDNEY changed kidney care. This guide explains composite outcomes, eGFR slope, eligibility, benefits, and harms.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Reading FIB-4 Correctly: A Triage Score, Not a Fibrosis Stage
What FIB-4 can and cannot tell you about liver scarring, how it feeds the AASLD noninvasive pathway, and where the score misleads.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
PPI Deprescribing and the Evidence on Long-Term Harms
Why proton pump inhibitors should be stopped when the indication ends, not because a study linked them to harm, and how to read that evidence.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Portal Hypertension in Cirrhosis: What Baveno VII Changed
Baveno VII rules clinically significant portal hypertension in or out from liver stiffness and platelet count, without a catheter pressure reading.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
MASLD and MASH: Why Fatty Liver Disease Was Renamed
Why liver societies replaced NAFLD and NASH with MASLD and MASH in 2023, what the MetALD category adds, and how to appraise a disease renaming.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Kidney Stones: What the Prevention Evidence Actually Supports
Fluid has broad guideline backing but a weak grade; thiazides, citrate, and allopurinol help mainly in urine-defined subgroups.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
JAK2 V617F: How One Mutation Became a Major Criterion for Polycythemia Vera
Why JAK2 V617F and exon 12 mutations carry such weight in the WHO criteria for polycythemia vera, and what a negative test still leaves open.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
IBD Versus IBS: How the Two Are Told Apart
Why a stool protein called fecal calprotectin, the cutoff behind it, and a patient's baseline risk decide who can skip colonoscopy when separating IBD from IBS.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
How to Read Liver Function Tests
A practical guide to ALT, AST, alkaline phosphatase, and bilirubin, and how the R ratio sorts an abnormal panel into hepatocellular or cholestatic.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
How to Read an Anemia Workup Without Jumping to Conclusions
Why ferritin, transferrin saturation, and MCV are read together, and how inflammation can hide real iron deficiency behind a normal-looking ferritin.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
How the Sickle Cell Guidelines Weigh Hydroxyurea and Transfusion
A close read of the ASH 2020 sickle cell guidelines and how their two labels, strength and certainty, sort screening, transfusion, and hydroxyurea advice.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
How the GERD Diagnosis and Reflux Testing Actually Work
How the ACG 2022 guideline uses a PPI trial, endoscopy, and pH testing to confirm, or overturn, a GERD diagnosis.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
How Stroke Risk Scores Guide Anticoagulation in Atrial Fibrillation
How the 2023 U.S. atrial fibrillation guideline shifted from a single CHA2DS2-VASc cutoff to an annual-risk threshold and several validated scores.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
How Celiac Disease Is Diagnosed Without Guesswork
Why tTG-IgA plus a total IgA comes first, why gluten must stay in the diet during testing, and when guidelines allow diagnosis without a biopsy.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Hepatitis C: How a Chronic Infection Became Curable
Why hepatitis C is now curable, what "cure" (SVR12) really measures, and the reasoning behind screening every adult aged 18 to 79.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Hepatitis B: How Serology Decides When Chronic Infection Is Treated
How HBeAg, HBsAg, ALT, and HBV DNA stage chronic hepatitis B, and why AASLD treats some phases with antivirals while monitoring others.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Helicobacter Pylori Test and Treat: How the Strategy and 2024 Guideline Work
How the 2024 ACG guideline reshaped H. pylori care, why bismuth quadruple therapy is now first line, and why a test of cure is required.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Finerenone and Diabetic Kidney Disease: Reading FIDELIO and FIGARO
What FIDELIO-DKD, FIGARO-DKD, and the pooled FIDELITY analysis show about finerenone's kidney and heart benefits, and its hyperkalemia trade-off.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Cystatin C Versus Creatinine: Why Two eGFR Estimates Can Disagree
Why creatinine and cystatin C eGFR values differ, what KDIGO 2024 advises, and how to read the mortality signal when they diverge.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Anticoagulation Basics: How the Evidence Picks the Drug
How guideline panels weigh DOACs against warfarin, when bridging heparin still helps, and why drug interactions keep warfarin in play for some patients.
Kidney, digestive, and blood health
Age-Adjusted D-Dimer: The Sticky-Note Rule That Cut Needless PE Scans
Why multiplying a patient's age by 10 to set the D-dimer threshold safely rules out pulmonary embolism in older adults, and where the rule stops.