High protein diets may lead to long-term kidney damage among those suffering from chronic kidney disease, according to research led by nephrologist Dr Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh, of the University of California – Irvine.
The review article examines the role nutrition plays in managing chronic kidney disease, a condition that affects approximately 10 percent of the world's adult population. The article release coincides with the opening of the annual Kidney Week Congress, the world's premier nephrology meeting, in New Orleans, Louisiana.
"The high protein diet that has been used increasingly in recent years to control weight gain and obesity may have deleterious impacts on kidney health in the long term," said Kalantar-Zadeh, director of the Harold Simmons Centre of Kidney Disease Research and Epidemiology, and chief of the division of nephrology and hypertension, UC Irvine School of Medicine. Colleague Dr Denis Fouque of the University Claude Bernard Lyon, France, also contributed to this work.
Chronic kidney disease is defined as evidence of structural or functional renal impairment for three or more months and is generally progressive and irreversible. Applying the potential benefits of nutritional management of the condition have remained underutilised in the US and many other countries, said Kalantar-Zadeh.
"There is an exceptionally high cost and burden of maintenance dialysis therapy and kidney transplantation," he said. "Thus, dietary interventions and nutritional therapy may be increasingly chosen as a management strategy for CKD, helping to increase longevity and delaying the need for the onset of dialysis for millions of people worldwide."
The research also indicates that a low protein, low-salt diet may not only slow the progression of CKD as an effective adjunct therapy, but it can also be used for the management of uraemia, or high levels of urea and other uremic toxins in the blood, in late-stage or advanced CKD and help patients defer the need to initiate dialysis.
Abstract
The nutritional status of patients with chronic kidney disease is generally compromised and requires dietary adjustments. This review considers several aspects of the nutritional management of chronic kidney disease in adults.
Authors
Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh, Denis Fouque
[link url="http://www.ucirvinehealth.org/news/2017/10/uci-review-points-to-long-term-negative-impact-of-high-protein-diets"]University of California – Irvine material[/link]
[link url="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1700312"]New England Journal of Medicine abstract[/link]