Kidney Health and Longevity: Are Your Kidneys Aging You Faster?
Your heart, brain, muscles, and metabolism dominate conversations about healthy aging. Now researchers are paying closer attention to the kidneys.
These metabolically active organs do more than filter waste from your blood. Their function is closely connected to many of the same cellular processes involved in aging, including mitochondrial function, inflammation, and oxidative stress.
While aging changes your kidneys, declining kidney function may also accelerate aspects of biological aging. Here's what scientists are learning about this overlooked piece of the longevity puzzle.
How Does Kidney Health Change With Age?
Your kidneys gradually lose some filtering capacity and resilience as you get older. Renal blood flow may decline, functional filtering units called nephrons can decrease, and glomerular filtration rate (GFR), a measure of how well your kidneys filter blood, often falls.
These changes can leave the kidneys more vulnerable to additional stress, making it increasingly important to protect the function you have.
The Kidney-Aging Connection Goes Both Ways
Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is considered a state of faster or premature aging. Researchers have linked it with frailty, cognitive decline, inflammation, and other age-related changes. Scientists have even described an “age gap” in which the biological age of the kidneys becomes disconnected from a person's chronological age.
These connections are putting kidney health on the longevity radar, particularly when it comes to healthspan: how well you continue to think, move, and function as you get older.
What Drives Kidney Aging?
Your kidneys require a lot of energy to filter blood, balance fluids and electrolytes, and reabsorb substances your body needs, making healthy mitochondrial function especially important.
As kidney cells age, changes in mitochondrial function can increase oxidative stress. This damage can promote inflammation, cellular aging, and further mitochondrial dysfunction. At the same time, antioxidant defenses may weaken, leaving kidney cells more vulnerable to damage.
And that's where one unusual antioxidant is attracting attention.
Can Ergothioneine Help Kidney Health?
Ergothioneine is an antioxidant found primarily in mushrooms that has earned attention as a potential “longevity vitamin.” Unlike many nutrients, your body has a specialized transporter that actively absorbs it and helps concentrate it in tissues vulnerable to oxidative stress. In the kidneys, this transporter reabsorbs ergothioneine from filtered fluid, helping your body retain it rather than lose it through urine.
In mice, ergothioneine reduced kidney damage while influencing inflammation and oxidative stress. In diabetic rats, it also helped improve markers of kidney function and reduced inflammation, oxidative damage, and structural changes.
These findings are especially interesting because a recent study found that people with chronic kidney disease had significantly lower blood levels of ergothioneine than healthy controls. While this doesn’t prove that low ergothioneine contributes to kidney disease or that supplementation can prevent it, it adds to the growing interest in ergothioneine’s potential role in kidney health and healthy aging.
What You Can Do for Your Kidneys Now
Some of the best ways to support kidney health are also foundations of healthy aging.
Keep your blood pressure and blood sugar within healthy ranges, stay active, eat a nutrient-rich diet without excessive sodium, and stay appropriately hydrated. Be mindful of frequent NSAID use, and talk with your healthcare provider before adding supplements like ergothioneine, especially if you have existing kidney problems.
You can't stop your kidneys from getting older, but protecting their function may help prevent some of the changes that can push kidney aging into overdrive.
Devan Ciccarelli is a NASM-Certified Personal Trainer, Nutrition Coach, and Women's Fitness Specialist who writes on health and lives in Florida with her two kids.
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