I had to appoint a temporary chief executive during my treatment and leave them in maintenance mode rather than work to grow them. I remember making decisions from my dialysis bed and just waiting for good news about a transplant.”
Initially reluctant for his wife, Eleni Theodoridou, to make such a sacrifice, he carried out an extensive search to find the best place for the surgery to be carried out.
“After we had decided to go ahead, the next question was where to have the operation, he said. I looked into travelling to the US, Germany or Spain but I did my due diligence and decided to opt for Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. I’m very glad I did.”
Abu Dhabi: Kidneys are remarkable organs: with their thousands of capillaries, a pair of kidneys filter waste products from the blood. But lifestyle diseases have been a scourge for kidney health.
In the UAE, as in most of the world, diabetes and hypertension are the biggest risk factors for kidney disease. Nearly 80 per cent of kidney damage can be attributed to these two conditions, and ahead of World Kidney Day 2021 tomorrow (March 11), experts are calling upon residents to safeguard their kidneys.
Dr Nizar Attallah Across the world, about 850 million people suffer from kidney disease. “While exact statistics are not available, we believe that the rate of chronic kidney disease in the UAE is higher than the rate in Europe. The major cause for this is of course the prevalence of diabetes and hypertension, which are themselves brought on by obesity and unhealthy lifestyle choices,” said Dr Nizar Attallah, transplant nephrologist at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. About on