Nutrition has always had an impact on overall health. Researchers have found that patients suffering from chronic kidney disease may want to consider avoiding highly acidic diets as this increases their risks for kidney failure by speeding up the progression of their condition.
In a study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, researchers found that a highly acidic diet, one that includes a lot of meat, can dramatically influence the progression of kidney disease. To prevent kidney failure from developing earlier, the opposite diet is recommended, meaning patients are advised to load up on fruits and vegetables which feature low acidity.
Researchers analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III involving information from 1,486 adults with chronic kidney disease, as well as results from a follow-up period of 14.2 years. According to their findings, not only is a diet high in acid strongly linked to kidney disease progression but that those patients who ate a lot of meat were three time likelier to develop kidney failure.
Aside from simply avoiding high meat consumption, patients are also urged to eat more fruits and vegetables and use only medications that don't overload the kidney's functions.
"The high costs and suboptimal quality of life that dialysis treatments bring may be avoided by adopting a more healthy diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables," explained University of California, San Francisco's Tanushree Banerjee, one of the authors for the study.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins University, Texas A&M College of Medicine and Scott and White Healthcare, University of Michigan, San Francisco General Hospital and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also participated in the study. Other authors include Deidra Crews, Anca Tilea, Donald Wesson, Nilka Rios-Burrows, Rajiv Saran, Neil Powe, Desmond Williams and the CDC Chronic Kidney Disease Surveillance Team.
Every 30 minutes, the kidneys go through all the blood in the body to remove excess fluid, toxins and other wastes. People are born with two kidneys but it is possible to function with just one. Aside from cleaning the blood, the kidneys also activate vitamin D to keep bones healthy and release a hormone to regulate blood pressure while maintaining balance between blood minerals. These functions are hampered in patients with kidney disease, a condition that one out of every three adults in America is at risk for. As the 9th leading cause of death in the United States, kidney disease claims more lives every year than prostate or breast cancer. In 2013, over 47,000 Americans died from it.
