How to Keep Your Kidneys Strong?

… Continued …

1. Slow down with your dietary sugar! Diet high in sugar is not only bad for your weight control, but it is also linked to diabetes. Both obesity and diabetes are risk factors of kidney disease, as noted earlier.
2. Consume salt (sodium) only in moderation, not more than 2.300 mg a day! Diet high in sodium is dangerous for your blood pressure control. And high blood pressure can hurt your kidneys.
3. Cut your dietary saturated fats. It’s much better to eat more unsaturated fats (such as almonds, olives, fatty fish, nuts and seeds) than saturated fats (such as red meat). Research suggests that diet high in saturated fats is the leading cause of high LDL, bad cholesterol. And high cholesterol can cause atherosclerosis, which is also dangerous for your kidney function.
4. Watch on soda! Sugar-sweetened soft drinks are usually high in sugar and contain other bad properties that may hurt your kidneys, particularly true if you drink them excessively! The good news, it’s still safe for most people to drink soda – but not more than 450 calories a week. If you have kidney disease, you may need to very restrict any sugar-sweetened beverages. Learn more the link between soda and the risk of kidney problem in here!
5. Restrict foods that are highly processed such as instant potato mix, deli meats, and cheese spreads. They are usually high in bad properties such as phosphorus additives, sodium and sugar – and these ingredients can cause negative effects on your kidneys.

How about alcohol?

Excessive drinking alcohol can hurt your liver and kidneys. There are a number of reasons of why heavy drinking is bad for your kidney health, see more this topic in this previous post!

If you drink, don’t overdo it! Just make sure you drink only in moderation, no more than 1 drink for women and 2 drinks for men. And if you have liver disease, your doctor may ask you to significantly cut alcohol.

Stop smoking!

There are a lot of health-risks associated with tobacco smoke. One of them is the risk of kidney disease. Research suggests that smoking may increase the risk of developing kidney problem, especially in diabetics (people with diabetes). Even in healthy people, it may also cause potentially dangerous changes in the function of kidney.

If you’re a smoker, try to stop smoking completely! Avoid also secondhand smoke coming from someone else’s smoke!

Regular exercise

Keeping active with regular exercise provide numerous different health benefits. It is excellent idea to help control your blood pressure, improve insulin sensitivity (important to keep the risk of type 2 diabetes low), great for weight control, and also good for your sleep. All of these benefits are also good to promote strong kidneys.

Use any medicine as well as prescribed!

Some medicines are linked to the increased risk of kidney disease. These include NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) or over-the-counter painkillers. This is particularly true if you overuse them!

If you do need to take particular medicines in long term, make sure to take it with prescription. The use of a medicine should outweigh its potential risks.

Take screening test if necessary!

Get to know your risk factors! Your doctor may recommend a routine screening test for kidney disease if you at increased risk of the disease or have some risk factors of kidney disease.

Kidneys have ability to regenerate and repair themselves. But this ability is limited – sometime the damage can be permanent, incurable. That’s why again, it’s very important to look after them!