Heavy alcohol drinking and low physical activity have been found to be closely associated with an increased risk of spilling protein in the urine. It is the spilling of protein in the urine that damages the kidney’s tiny nephrons, the filtering agents in the kidney. There is also an increasing risk of protein in the urine with the number of cigarettes smoked per day. Japanese Journal of Public Health 42(4):243; April 1995. There is a close relationship between these three enemies to the human body. Someone who smokes is usually less willing and able to engage in strenuous physical activity for health’s sake. With the diminution of the taste buds because of the poisons in tobacco smoke, alcohol tastes better and better. With alcohol comes a decreased ability to exercise at all. The alcohol lowers the reasoning powers so the hapless human smokes more and more since their bodies can no longer sense the pain the increased load of toxins is causing. And all the while the kidneys are frying to process the poisons found in the alcohol and the tobacco.
In one study, one way to help the kidneys get rid of their wastes is by deep pool therapy. After 30 minutes with the kidney failure patient standing in a pool of water up to the shoulders, there was a diuresis of water, sodium, and potassium. The pool bath is much preferable to a tub bath in this regard. The slight pressure of the water against the body tissues increases the effectiveness of the treatment encouraging the blood to pick up wastes and transport them to the kidney. An hour or two each day can be a sort of natural dialysis.
Nephritis from lupus can be benefited by the high lignin content of flaxseed. It is recommended that those who suffer from nephritis take two to four tablespoons of ground flaxseed, freshly ground, each day, sprinkled on cereal, salad, or vegetables, or stirred into juice or soup. It also has an anti-inflammatory effect.
A high fiber diet can increase excretion with the fecal material of substances causing a high blood urea. What happens is that fermentable fibers increase urea disposal in the large bowel. A 20 to 30 percent decrease in blood urea occurred in animals given a diet high in this fiber.
Inositol when used with choline has been found effective experimentally, at least partially reversing nephritis. Phytic acid, the raw product from which inositol is extracted, is found in corn, rye, wheat, oats, peas, barley, rice, beans, flax seed, cottonseed, peanuts, and soybeans.
Lactulose, a laboratory sugar, has been reported to depress ammonia absorption from the large bowel and to increase fecal nitrogen excretion. Unfortunately, it causes diarrhea. Fiber enhances urea capture in the large bowel and promotes excretion without any digestive disturbances, particularly when the level of protein in the diet is low or moderate.
The most sensitive laboratory test we have for kidney function is the creatinine. If the level begins to drift upward, especially if the level goes above 1.3 mg/dl, you should begin a program for protection of the kidney and improving its function. Exercise and diet alone with careful application of the eight natural laws of health can be effective in protecting the kidney from further damage. The most favorable diet is the total vegan vegetarian diet. If kidney failure can be discovered before it has caused the creatinine test to rise to 5.0, there is still hope of reversal of the degenerative process. All “bad habits” should be left off immediately and good health habits instituted. If kidney failure progresses, following is a diet to help avoid dialysis, or to be used by the dialysis patient.
Diet in Renal Failure
All nutrients the body requires can be obtained either from plant food sources or from the manufacturing plants the body itself maintains—liver, skin, brain, etc. Since some patients with kidney failure have a problem in retaining certain nutrients and others a different set, it is essential to know the type of problem the patient has so that the specific elements retained by the kidneys of that person can be minimized in the diet by eating foods low in those particular substances. The vegetarian routine is the most favorable for kidney patients, giving the best opportunity both to work with the kidneys, and to avoid diseases of other kinds than kidney disease that will put an even greater burden on the kidneys.
The quantity of protein used should be just barely enough to maintain a degree of strength and low normal blood proteins. Twenty to 40 grams of protein daily should be quite adequate. (Ref. MEDICAL WORLD NEWS, November 3, 1967) That would figure to be about 120 to 200 calories in the form of protein. The balance of the 1500 to 1700 calories which the kidney patients should be taking can be obtained from the carbohydrates and fats found in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds. Probably no more than 150 to 200 calories per day should be taken in the form of fats, unless weight loss is excessive. Some weight loss can be expected because of the nature of kidney disease. This is loss of actual fat and some muscle mass, which is offset somewhat by fluid retention which accounts for some weight gain—five to twenty pounds.
Since potassium is high in many fruits and phosphorus is high in many grains, those who need to pay attention to these features of blood chemistry will need to be guided accordingly. Sometimes a uremic patient may be able to stay off dialysis by a rigidly low protein diet. Even those who are on hemodialysis, if they adopt a spartan dietary regimen, can reduce the time spent on dialysis. The uremia patient must learn to eat to live, not live to eat. Perfect discipline is required and the eyes should not be allowed to even rest on foods which you may not have, nor should the imagination be allowed to picture them. Why make yourself miserable. There is a balance between having so much protein that you poison yourself with nitrogenous wastes, or so little protein that you become undernourished and vulnerable to infection.
Hemodialysis itself causes some loss of amino acids and peptides, and this lack can be supplied by the dialysis machine. Low protein spaghetti is good for uremic patients with a tomato sauce thickened with starch such as arrowroot, cornstarch, or tapioca. Those who maintain a very strict diet will feel better and be spared from certain agonizing symptoms.
Good psychological support from the patient's family and the patient's doctor can be very helpful in the patient's continuing to maintain a good dietary regimen. If the food is made attractive and served cheerfully, it can be tolerated quite nicely even though it may tend to be somewhat monotonous. If the dialysate in the machine cannot compensate for the losses of protein which occur during dialysis, the dietary allotment of protein may need to be increased to 30 to 50 grams per day to prevent muscle wasting and peripheral neuropathy (strange and distressing symptoms from nerves) which plague many dialysis patients. Those who manage to stay on the diet will have approximately half the BUN (blood urea nitrogen) of those who eat a more regular diet. The hours spent on dialysis may need to be from six to ten hours more per week for those not adhering to a strict diet.
For many decades the low protein diet has been promoted as a method of causing the majority of patients to ''show no further progression of the disease, or a much slower rate.'' Sixty-one percent will achieve a stabilization of kidney function regardless of age, sex, or general health of the patient. Early intervention is the key, preferably when serum creatinine levels are still down around 2-2.5 mg/dL. If the creatinine reaches 4-5 mg/dL, it is much more difficult to get the disease under control. At 2 mg/dL the renal patient has already lost roughly 70 percent of renal function. It is at this point that protein and phosphate restrictive diets are the most useful.
Patients having polycystic kidney disease with renal failure respond less well to a low protein diet than do those with chronic glomerulonephritis, hypertension, or diabetes, but even in polycystic disease there is some help from diet. (Ref. THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE May 31. 1990, 322(22):1610.
As protein intake goes up, urinary urea excretion also goes up. A formula can be used to calculate the protein intake judged by the urinary urea excretion. (Ref. KIDNEY INT. 27:58-65;1985 "A Method for Estimating Nitrogen Intake of Patients with Chronic Renal Failure," by Maroni, B. J.) Your doctor can make the appropriate laboratory tests and calculations.
Strict compliance to the diet does not greatly interfere with patient's lifestyle: "in fact many feel better which provides positive reinforcement for continuing the diet." (Ref. THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE May 31, 1990, 322(22):1610)
Death from unassisted kidney failure will usually occur at serum creatinine levels of ten. Even without dialysis, 70 to 75 percent of patients will survive more than six years on a protein restricted diet—survival times being 91 months on the restricted diet, and only 16 months on a free diet. Creatinine is an end product of protein metabolism in skeletal muscle. Creatinine is excreted by the kidneys, and represents a good marker for the progression of kidney disease. Close follow-up by the physician is an important point. (Ref. MEDICAL TRIBUNE, January 22, 1986:l and THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE 322(22);1609-1611)
Natural Treatment For Kidney Failure
- The eight natural laws of health assume a greater importance to the kidney patient; they are the lifeline. Fresh air, proper sunshine, a good diet, exercise even when you don't feel like it, pure water, strict temperance in all things, rest in the form of short stops or even naps during the day and seven to eight hours sleep at night, with trust in divine power—these are the natural laws of health.
- Become informed in a library about your disease. Work with it.
- Wear a large (one foot square or more) charcoal compress over the back each night. Change it in the morning or take a fresh shower. The skin will rid the body of many urinary wastes if encouraged to do so by charcoal, frequent showers, and warm skin.
- Take one tablespoon of charcoal powder in water four times a day to get rid of internal toxins.
- Take ginkgo as tea if you can drink four extra glasses of water a day, or as the slightly less beneficial capsules if you need to use them. Ginkgo improves circulation to many internal organs.
- Keep up your muscle strength by exercise. Expect to feel some weakness. That is natural in kidney failure.
- If there are complicating diseases such as diabetes or hypertension, these diseases should be rigidly controlled to prevent additional stresses on the kidneys. With progressive deterioration comes increasing incidence of hypertension, urinary tract infection, secondary hyperparathyroidism, muscle loss and weakness, and increased incidence of infections including pneumonia. (Ref. THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE 307(11) 652-659, 1982)
- The presence in the diet of a lot of vegetable fiber influences the digestive degradation and disposal of blood urea. Urea passed from the blood to the colon in approximately 50 percent greater quantities in those fed an oat fiber diet, and 120 percent greater in those fed gum arabic and oligosaccharide diets, than in those fed a wheat starch diet. Fecal nitrogen was 10 percent in fiber free controls, 20 percent in oat fiber groups, and 30 percent in the gum arabic and oligosaccharide groups. We can expect then that the simple addition of a large quantity of fiber to the diet will induce a 20 to 30 percent decrease in blood urea and renal nitrogen excretion relative to those not taking such an increase in fiber. (Ref. JOURNAL OF NUTRITION 125:1010-1016:1995) These studies indicate the benefits of a vegetarian diet for persons with kidney failure.
- Since patients with uremia are likely to get itching all over the body, or in certain areas, one study showed that ultra violet phototherapy decreased the itching remarkably. The use of sunlight to the point of sub-sunburn would be acceptable instead of the use of artificial ultraviolet lights. (Ref. THE NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE 297:136-138;1977)
- A good treatment consists of a mild steam bath or soak in a very warm tub at 101 or 102 degrees water temperature. If water is not being retained, copious quantities of water can be taken during the bath. After the sweating bath a full body whirlpool, or a full body massage, can be very helpful to stimulate the skin. Finish with a brisk toweling with a coarse dry towel.
- Take echinacea capsules or tincture to boost the immune system. Be involved in something creative every day. There are several million persons with weakened immune systems in the United States, including one million with HIV positivity. Other systemic diseases producing weak immune systems are chronic renal failure, alcoholism, cirrhosis, diabetes, cancers, leukemia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and those having bone marrow transplants, splenectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, and those taking corticosteroids.
For more information contact:
Uchee Pines Lifestyle Center
30 Uchee Pines Road #75
Seale, Alabama 36875
Tel. 334-855-4764
www.ucheepines.org
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