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The £1.2m study involving experts from across the country including Sheffield is focusing on the properties of sodium biocarbonate to investigate if it can stop the disease from worsening.

As many as a quarter of people aged over 65 suffer some form of chronic kidney ailment, which can get worse over time and in its most severe form leads to weakened muscles and growing frailty.

The problems require costly and invasive treatments including kidney transplantation and dialysis.

Researchers at the Sheffield Kidney Institute, based at the city’s Northern General Hospital, will test whether volunteer patients taking sodium biocarbonate have improved strength.

Martin Wilkie, consultant renal physician and honorary reader at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Sadly there is no cure for chronic kidney disease and once it is in its advanced stages patients are far more likely to suffer life-threatening conditions such as heart attacks and strokes.

“Through this study we hope to discover if this simple and inexpensive drug can help prevent patients having to endure costly and invasive treatments.

“This could play a critical role in halting or slowing down the spread of chronic kidney disease and improving the ability of people who live with this worrying disease to have the strength to do simple things such as open a jar at home.”

The research is funded by the National Institute for Health Research in conjunction with Dundee University and NHS Tayside.

Meanwhile, patients suffering from the severe auto-immune condition Sjögren’s syndrome, which affects half a million people in the UK, are being invited to take part in a £1m drug trial headed by experts from Leeds.

The condition occurs when the body attacks its own tissues, particularly tear and salivary glands causing dryness of the mouth and eyes, extreme fatigue and other problems. Sufferers, including tennis player Venus Williams, find it hard to cry. Experts are recruiting 110 patients to test a drug used for severe rheumatoid arthritis.

Rheumatologist Colin Pease, of Chapel Allerton Hospital in Leeds, who is running the city’s arm of the trial funded by the charity Arthritis Research UK, said: “This study is a major step forward in terms of research into the condition, which could dramatically improve treatment.”