How long can you live with one kidney? As long as one kidney is healthy, it should not affect a lifespan.

Maintaining kidney health is important to your overall health and general well-being. By keeping your kidneys healthy, your body will filter and expel waste properly and produce hormones to help your body function properly.

There may also be a chance of having high blood pressure later in life. However, the loss in kidney function is usually very mild, and life span is normal. Most people with one kidney live healthy, normal lives with few problems. In other words, one healthy kidney can work as well as two.

The left kidney is located slightly more superior than the right kidney due to the larger size of the liver on the right side of the body. Unlike the other abdominal organs, the kidneys lie behind the peritoneum that lines the abdominal cavity and are thus considered to be retroperitoneal organs.

Their main job is to cleanse the blood of toxins and transform the waste into urine. Each kidney weighs about 160 grams and gets rid of between one and one-and-a-half litres of urine per day. The two kidneys together filter 200 litres of fluid every 24 hours.

“That usually involves simple laboratory tests: a urine test to look for kidney damage, and a blood test to measure how well the kidneys are working.” The urine test checks for a protein called albumin, which isn’t routinely detected when your kidneys are healthy.

Most humans are born with two kidneys as the functional components of what is called the renal system, which also includes two ureters, a bladder and a urethra. The kidneys have many functions, including regulating blood pressure, producing red blood cells, activating vitamin D and producing some glucose.

Although most people have two kidneys, you only need one functioning kidney to live an active, healthy life. If you have only one kidney, it’s important to protect it and keep it functioning well because you don’t have a second one to take over if it fails.

You’ll be surprised as to how much you could lose and still live. You can still have a fairly normal life without one of your lungs, a kidney, your spleen, appendix, gall bladder, adenoids, tonsils, plus some of your lymph nodes, the fibula bones from each leg and six of your ribs.

But it is not a final threshold. Doctors have long believed that if someone is without a heartbeat for longer than about 20 minutes, the brain usually suffers irreparable damage.

Intestinal Failure Most people can live without a stomach or large intestine, but it is harder to live without a small intestine. When all or most of the small intestine has to be removed or stops working, nutrients must be put directly into the blood stream (intravenous or IV) in liquid form.

The liver performs essential, life-sustaining functions. While you can’t live without a liver completely, you can live with only part of one. Many people can function well with just under half of their liver. Your liver can also grow back to full size within a matter of months.

There are two stages in cirrhosis: compensated and decompensated. Compensated cirrhosis: People with compensated cirrhosis do not show symptoms, while life expectancy is around 9–12 years. A person can remain asymptomatic for years, although 5–7% of those with the condition will develop symptoms every year.

See your doctor if you notice any of these issues, he advises.

1. Fluid retention. This is the most common sign of liver disease, appearing in 50 percent of people who have cirrhosis, a condition in which scar tissue replaces healthy liver tissue.
2. Jaundice.
3. Bleeding.
4. Confusion.