Dialysis and Nutrition | Proper Nutrition Can Help Prevent Mortality After Dialysis
This video is about dialysis and nutrition for dialysis, before you start, and when you start for the first couple of months which shows to greatly improve your health and greatly reduces the chances of dying when you start dialysis which can be pretty high depending if you have poor nutrition status.
I was on dialysis 19 years ago for two and a half years and it was not easy it was not fun but now almost 20 years later we know so much more about how to have a good quality of life how to thrive on dialysis. I see people on dialysis now that follow a lot of our information just doing so well you would never know they’re on dialysis and they’re really having a good quality of life as compared to right before dialysis or compared to someone whose fighting dialysis.
I didn’t want to go on dialysis. I fought it for longer than I should have and all I really did in retrospect is make myself a lot worse. This information is coming from the Journal of Renal Nutrition: January 25th 2022. The title of the article is association of nutrition status at dialysis start with long-term survival a 10-year retrospective study. They looked at poor nutrition status and found that at the start of dialysis in the first couple months in if you had poor nutrition status you had a pretty high chance of passing away. and you just didn’t do well.
We’re going to talk about the areas they talked about and what you can do to implement a lot of these things. The first thing that they talked about was one of the most important things: albumin level. On your blood work there’s going to be an albumin level, and this albumin level is the marker that we use to determine how your protein status is and if you need more protein or less. Most likely you need more because one of the issues with later stage kidney disease is you don’t absorb your protein like you used to when you had healthier kidneys and you lose a lot of protein through the urine because of the kidney disease. That was one of the top things that was most important.
If you look at your blood test albumin ideally should be 4.0 and above. 3.8 and above is okay but we really strive for that 4.0. Now this is when the doctor is going to tell you to eat more protein or you might go to a dietitian who tells you to eat more protein. When you go on dialysis you can’t eat more protein but you want to try to maintain as much kidney function as you have and so eating a lot more protein isn’t really ideal because the extra protein is going to stress out the remaining function on your kidneys.
Hopefully you can still urinate when you’re on dialysis. I urinated for the first few months then I lost the remaining kidney function and I couldn’t urinate. The majority of people can’t urinate but if you are able to maintain that function it makes dialysis a lot lot easier with less restrictions. So that albumin level you can eat a little bit more protein if you’re on dialysis. Make sure you follow your dialysis diet.
The other option to raise your protein without stressing your kidney is to take essential amino acids. That’s broken down protein without all the waste that really helps support normal albumin level and gives you good nutrition. Another product you can take is ketoanalogues of essential amino acids, which are better but more expensive. We have videos that talk about those so we’ll have links in the comment section right below so make sure to take a look at that.
You really want to do what you can to get that albumin level increase. Another thing they mentioned on there was creatinine: making sure to have a more stable creatinine while you’re on dialysis. You can do that by following your diet, make sure to take all your medications, make sure to take the blood pressures, make sure to take everything that your recommended because most likely it’s going to help you.
They mentioned having very high urea levels so bun levels on your blood work. Your bun it stands for blood urea nitrogen, you want to keep that level healthy. You can support that nutritionally by making sure to get enough fiber in your diet. Making sure you get fiber supplements is also very helpful. You can also support that with probiotics.
A lot of things you can do so you want to keep those levels low. Another thing they looked at was cholesterol levels. There are natural things to take for cholesterol. You can take diet if none of those are working take the medications healthier cholesterol is a healthier you and a healthier kidneys. Another thing they looked at is C Reactive protein. C Reactive protein is an inflammation marker for your kidneys. If you have an elevated c-reactive protein you want to take some vitamin c or vitamin e that gives you healthy support for those c-reactive protein levels.
Take a look at other videos we do talk about that. You don’t want to take a lot of vitamin c. 500 milligrams to a thousand is very safe and okay for people with kidney issues. With vitamin e generally 400 mg twice a day and that could help support a healthy c reactive protein level. Next to albumin as being one of the most important or the most important marker is having a stable weight. They found people had a lot of weight fluctuations they found that to really increase the likelihood of death. You really want to maintain your diet, whatever renal diet you’re on.
