Kidney Disease and Cancer | How to Prevent Cancer with Kidney Disease

Today’s video we’re discussing a piece of research that says if you have mild to moderate kidney disease or kidney transplant you have a much higher risk of getting cancer and dying of cancer.

That’s what today’s video is about and if you have kidney disease or a kidney transplant like me this is what you should do to help prevent cancer and to make it more treatable by catching it very early.

This comes to you from the American Journal of Kidney Diseases published April 8, 2022 and it says patients with kidney disease may have an increased risk of cancer. This really isn’t anything new, we’ve known this for many years. It just looks like it made the headlines now. It’s just circulating throughout news headlines in the health sections. So we already known this nothing new because if you have decreased organ function it’s going to affect your body and it’s going to affect a lot of things which are going to make you at an increased risk of getting cancer and dying of cancer.

So if you have kidney disease or a kidney transplant what you should do? Cancer screenings are so important and the number one thing you should do is make sure you have all your doctor’s visits when you’re supposed to, you get your blood work, you do a colonoscopy when it’s recommended, and you can ask and do additional cancer screening. That’s the most important thing because we know with kidney transplants, up to 80 percent and some journals even say higher, that you can get skin cancer or the beginning of skin cancer which is abnormal cells.

I had my transplant and it happened because I was doing housework outside for a summer and light reflected off my glasses and I had some abnormal cells which left untreated would have turned into cancer cells. I got it frozen off. It looks like it came back recently so I’ll be doing that procedure shortly and it’s not even a procedure it’s just going in the office and getting a little spray that kills the cells off and fresh cells grow. So get your cancer screenings it’s so important all right. That’s the top thing I’m going to talk about.

Vitamin D is a super supplement good for kidney disease. It’s a pro hormone, it does so many good things if you can get that level on your blood work to 40 to 60 it drops your levels of getting certain cancers. Ideally it should be like 50 to 60. Some people say higher on your blood test. That may be beneficial, but we really don’t know yet and it’s not conclusive. But we know if you get your Vitamin D levels at the 40 to 60 range 50 to 60 which I like you’re gonna drop your risk. That’s very important.

What is also important is a lower fat diet with healthier fats that is shown to prevent a variety of cancers and preventing their recurrence once they’re treated. So a lot of fruits and vegetables. less fried foods, more olive oil, extra virgin olive oil. You can put it on salads, you can lightly dress it over vegetables. It is so good for your heart health and just get rid of all those excess fats. Those excess fats will come from those fried foods and they’ll come from packaged foods. Donuts, cakes, pies, pop-tarts, all these type of things have unhealthy forms of fat, so you want to do those things.

Your vitamin d, your cancer screenings, lots of fruits and vegetables, healthy fats and lower fats. If you get rid of a lot of those packaged foods and those fried foods you’re automatically going to be lower fat and then if you have the healthier fats it’ll be much better for you. Switching butter to like a plant-based butter and lower sodium is better and preferred because you’re getting out what is potentially an unhealthy fat and switching with a healthier one. Those are all the things that you can do if you have kidney disease or a kidney transplant to lower your risk.

One thing for anybody with kidney disease especially transplants is avoiding long sun exposure. I learned my lesson and so I might go to the beach once or twice a year and you’re going to find me under an umbrella that I have. I won’t be really out there a lot. I might go into the water for a couple of minutes when I‘m coming back in I won’t be out there for long periods of time and if I do i’m lathered up in a lot of sunscreen.