Running and other forms of aerobic exercise can promote a number of important benefits, including improved heart health and the prevention of some types of cancer. Exercise is not without its drawbacks, however, especially when performed to excess.

Colon cleansing, which is also called colon hydrotherapy, is generally not required or recommended for healthy people. Using enemas or colonic irrigation, taking herbal supplements with laxative effects or over-the-counter laxatives may be used to partially cleanse the colon in certain situations.

Patients whose kidney function has dropped to a mere 20 percent are likely to be facing renal failure soon. At this stage of renal disease, it becomes a life and death matter for patients to take good care of themselves.

Each kidney has about a million nephrons, where urine formation takes place. At any given time, about 20 percent of the blood is going through the kidneys to be filtered so that the body can eliminate waste and maintain hydration, blood pH and proper levels of blood substances.

Medication-induced liver injury ranges from very mild to very severe. Doctors use blood tests that measure several different liver enzymes, along with other markers, to help detect injury from drug toxicity.

Gabapentin is an anticonvulsant that is sometimes used to treat epilepsy. It also may be used to lessen symptoms of postherpetic neuralgia, a complication of shingles that affects your nerve fibers and skin and causes burning pain.

Oxycodone, a schedule II prescription narcotic, has benefit as a pain reliever for moderate to severe pain, but also has great potential for abuse.

Sometimes the only cure for someone suffering and dying is to receive a new organ. Hearts, livers, lungs, skin, corneas and other organs are harvested from those who have just passed away. Those vital organs are put into the bodies of the living. Nearly 100,000 people are waiting for organs in the U.S.

Excess protein in the kidney is called proteinuria. This is tested in the urine and can also be called albuminuria or urine albumin. Most proteins are too big to pass through the glomeruli, or the kidney filters. When these filters are damaged, the proteins show up in the urine.

Your kidneys help maintain normal blood concentration by removing wastes, excess fluid and electrolytes such as potassium. Potassium, blood urea nitrogen, or BUN, and creatinine blood tests can monitor kidney function in patients diagnosed with kidney disease.

Normally your immune system protects you from disease. But if you have an autoimmune disorder, your body's immune system attacks your healthy organs and tissues thinking that they are invaders. Gluten intolerance is an autoimmune disorder that affects your digestive tract.

While the skin is the largest organ outside your body, your liver is the largest organ inside your body. The liver is responsible for helping to store vitamins and minerals in your body and also to detoxify extra chemicals in your body.