Protein in the urine linked to life expectancy

Pee in a cup and you might get a clue as to how much longer you will live. A new report published online today in the National Kidney Foundation's American Journal of Kidney Diseases shows a strong correlation between levels of protein in the urine, or proteinuria, and mortality.
"Our report shows that both men and women with higher levels of proteinuria had substantially reduced life expectancy in comparison to people with relatively low levels of proteinuria," said the report's lead author, Dr. Tanvir Chowdhury Turin of the University of Calgary.
According to the National Kidney Foundation, healthy people have very little protein in the urine since the kidneys act as filters to keep protein in the body. Proteinuria is an early indication that the kidneys have been damaged in some way, allowing protein to leak out.
Proteinuria was determined either by urine albumin-creatinine ratio (ACR) or by urine dipstick.
1.  An ACR of less than 30 mg/g was considered normal, a value of 30 to 300 mg/g was mild, and a value greater than 300 mg/g was heavy.
2.A negative dipstick reading was considered normal, a trace or 1+ reading was mild, and a 2+ reading was heavy proteinuria.
No matter the patient’s age, life expectancy was shorter for individuals with higher proteinuria.  For example, the life expectancies of 40-year-old men and women with no proteinuria were 15.2 and 17.4 years longer, respectively, than of people with heavy proteinuria.  Proteinuria-free men and women outlived those with mild proteinuria by 8.2 and 10.5 years, respectively. http://www.kidneyhelp.net/contactus/