Plant-based diets and kidney disease do not cause risk of severe hyperkalemia that’s high potassium in people with kidney disease Research comes from may 7, 2020 it was published in the emergency let me take a look internal emergency medical journal and what they did was they looked at people who had plant-based diets actually switched people over to a plant-based diet and seeing how their potassium levels were with kidney disease and for the most part what we worried about with plant-based diets and kidney disease is that too much potassium too much potassium is not good for you and that’s always been the reason that we told people don’t eat too many vegetables don’t eat high potassium foods don’t eat fruits a lot of fruits with kidney disease where all those recommendations have changed in the last couple years because it shows so much benefit and this study showed that you didn’t really have to worry too much about potassium and that’s what we’ve been looking at over the years is that we’re focusing less and less on potassium finding that plant-based diets have so much benefit in kidney disease a plant-based diet over a diet that has animal proteins like chicken fish eggs beef and anything animal-based dairy products you have less acid build up so that’s a lot less acid that your kidney has to deal with.
The phosphorus you absorb much more phosphorus from animal-based products whereas opposed to the phosphorus that’s in plant-based products is only absorbed a little bit a lot less so phosphorus levels can be controlled well. plant-based proteins are easier there are fewer metabolic toxins all right they also reference in this study that the plant-based diets help with constipation a problem common problem in CKD it also helps with gut dysbiosis that’s all the build-up of the bad toxins and every and all those kidney toxins that goes on in your gut um and it helps with just easier processing for the whole body helps cholesterol too so so many benefits that come from a plant-based diet and like I mentioned we’ve been moving over to plant-based diets it’s a new recommendation it’s even recommended by most of the kidney foundations and for anybody that’s wondering if they should or shouldn’t you can always do the before and after blood work to see how you how your numbers are you can always do a 60-day test 90-day test so the good thing about diets is they’re not set in stone you could always change it right away but it’s something you should consider.
If you have kidney disease switching over to a plant-based diet now one of the issues is that potassium that they worry about now what they did mention in this study was that the people had some type of nutrition training nutrition education training so if you’re going to do a plant-based diet get some books check out some more videos look at our website on plant-based diets for kidney disease at healthykidneyinc.com because you need to learn a little bit to switch over now one technique the lower potassium if you’re going to go plant-based and you’re worried about it is something called leaching where whatever food you had let’s say you had some high potassium vegetables or potatoes you can soak them in water for a couple hours and that helps take out some of the potassium and then you boil you boil that food for a couple minutes if you want to boil it fully to cook it that’s fine but you can boil it for a few minutes dump the water out take your food and then use another cooking method and that also helps lower potassium so if you’re worried yo can try leaching the potassium out of your vegetables so very beneficial but if you’re considering a plant-based diet it’s really good for the kidneys if you’re on one now you’re doing great and when i say plant-based we’re really talking about getting out the animal products and putting in legumes pulses lentils nuts and seeds these are gonna be the major sources soy products if you’re eating soy products that’s another plant-based food that’s shown some benefit in kidney disease so these are the type of things you’ll be doing very beneficial something to consider if you’re not on a plant-based diet.
