Topic
Kidney, liver and digestive health
How the kidney, liver, and gut are assessed and protected, explained through the numbers and the evidence.
This page collects every article by Dr. Damon Tojjar in this topic. For all topics see browse by topic, and for the source-anchored record see damontojjar.com/record.
Articles in this topic (19)
- Cystatin C Versus Creatinine: Why Two eGFR Estimates Can Disagree
Two readings from one blood drawWhen a laboratory returns two estimated glomerular filtration rates from the same sample, one anchored on creatinine and one on...
- FIB-4 and the Noninvasive Path to Staging Liver Fibrosis
The short answerFIB-4 is a triage number, not a diagnosis. It combines four routine values, age, AST, ALT, and platelet count, to rank how likely advanced liver...
- Finerenone and Diabetic Kidney Disease: Reading FIDELIO and FIGARO
Finerenone, a nonsteroidal mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist, lowered the risk of cardiorenal events in people with type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease...
- Helicobacter Pylori Test and Treat: How the Strategy and 2024 Guideline Work
Helicobacter pylori test and treat is a three-step logic: confirm an active infection with a noninvasive test, prescribe a course of antibiotics chosen to beat...
- Hepatitis B: How Serology Decides When Chronic Infection Is Treated
Chronic hepatitis B is a disease that lab work stages before any drug enters the conversation, and four numbers do most of that work: HBeAg, HBsAg, the liver enzyme...
- Hepatitis C: How a Chronic Infection Became Curable
Hepatitis C became curable because two things happened at once. Direct-acting antiviral pills now clear the virus in more than 95 percent of people who complete a...
- How Celiac Disease Is Diagnosed Without Guesswork
Celiac disease is diagnosed by measuring a specific blood antibody while the person is still eating gluten, then, in most adults, confirming that result with a...
- How the GERD Diagnosis and Reflux Testing Actually Work
For most people with classic heartburn and regurgitation and no warning signs, the American College of Gastroenterology's 2022 guideline does not begin with a...
- How to Read Liver Function Tests
Liver "function" tests mostly measure injury, not functionStandard liver chemistries are a pattern to interpret, not a diagnosis to read off. ALT and AST report...
- IBD Versus IBS: How the Two Are Told Apart
Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) can produce the same daily complaints, cramping, urgency and altered stool, yet they are...
- Kidney Stones: What the Prevention Evidence Actually Supports
The prevention evidence for recurrent kidney stones is thinner and more conditional than the confident advice around it suggests. The most consistent signal is for...
- MASLD and MASH: Why Fatty Liver Disease Was Renamed
In June 2023, a panel convened by the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the European Association for the Study of the Liver, and the Latin...
- Portal Hypertension and Cirrhosis: How Baveno VII Reframed the Diagnosis
Portal hypertension is the rising pressure in the venous system that carries blood from the gut through the liver, and in cirrhosis it drives the complications that...
- PPI Deprescribing and the Evidence on Long-Term Harms
The one principle that reorganizes the whole debateThe American Gastroenterological Association's 2022 clinical practice update on de-prescribing proton pump...
- How to Read the SGLT2 Inhibitor Kidney Trials
The SGLT2 inhibitor kidney trials are best read as a lesson in endpoint design, not as a slogan about a drug class. EMPA-KIDNEY and the chronic kidney disease...
- Resmetirom and the First Approved MASH Drug: Reading an Accelerated Approval
In March 2024 the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted accelerated approval to resmetirom, marketed as Rezdiffra, for adults with noncirrhotic metabolic...
- The Gut-Liver Axis Explained
The gut-liver axis is the two-way traffic between the intestine and the liver. Most of the liver's blood arrives straight from the gut through the portal vein,...
- Uncomplicated Diverticulitis and the Antibiotic Question
For decades, acute diverticulitis meant automatic antibiotics. Randomized trials such as AVOD and DIABOLO found no benefit in mild, uncomplicated cases, so the...
- What Albuminuria Means and How to Read a Urine Albumin-to-Creatinine Ratio
Albuminuria means an abnormal amount of albumin, the most abundant protein in blood, is leaking through the kidney's filter into the urine. The urine...