Good news with plant based diet

[Bassetmommer]

After being on plant based for 8 months, and being pretty loyal to the diet, I had the best labs I have had in a long time. My creatinine was the biggest drop. From 3.55 to 3.08. GFR went up 2 points. My PHT intact was the lowest since 2016. Potassium was back down and in range and so was phosphorous. That was shocking. I still have some occasional dairy. Can't stand the plant based dairy products. Do love almond creamer though. Not bragging, just saying that for me the plant based diet works. Oh, and I am now down over 50 pounds lost and finally moving the scale again after so many months stuck. But I am also doing 2 days of hour long water work out and walking every day, and taking Ozempic. Its working for me for now.

[Skeptix]

Well wahaay for you. That's bleeding great news .. and after 8 months of it. That's fortitude and sticking to your guns. Congratulations Bassetmommer - you've been so supportive to soany its great to see you able to support others with such positive news.

Well done!

👌

Some shifting of weight too. Excellent work..

[Bassetmommer NKF Ambassador in reply to Skeptix]

Thank you

[YorkieMom1]

This all sounds WONDERFUL! So happy for you.

[Mgt8]

That's very encouraging news, I bet you feel much better too. Well done you for sticking to it and thanks for sharing; it does us all good to hear this kind of thing has tangible results!Mgt

[rabbit01]

That's really great news! Well done. Pleased all your hardwork is starting to pay off.

[Ziggydoodah]

Well done!!! I have cut out all animal proteins and eating a more plant based diet. I wont lie and say it has been easy but when I read posts like yours, it encourages me to keep going. Thanks for posting, it really helps people like myself, who get no encouragement from their medical team, when they try a different approach. I was actually told by my new kidney nurse, i should be eating MORE animal proteins and to stop googling. If i never googled I wouldnt have found Health unlocked and all your amazing advice!!!.

[Sparker88]

Nice! What kind of ckd do you have?

[Jayhawker]

Whoohoo

[KidneyCoach NKF Ambassador]

CONGRATULATIONS! It's work and tough too. Blessings

[drmind]

CONGRATULATIONS. A lovely reward for staying on your diet and doing your exercise. I'm totally impressed and most importantly, I'm encouraged to keep going. Is the Ozembic for diabetes? Keep it up.

[Bassetmommer NKF Ambassador in reply to drmind]

The Ozempic is for diabetes, but in my case its for weight loss. I had been stuck at 35 pounds loss for months and months and nothing I was going was moving it. So we tried this. Everyone was a bit concerned about how it would effect my kidneys since it is not often they prescribe it at my GFR level. But so far so good. I figured it was worth the risk and I had to advocate for it. I am also on the lowest dose and probably will stay on that as long as my glucose levels keep where they are which are in the normal range lately. My husband is using a new SGLPT2 inhibitor called Forxiga and is also having good results. Yeah for new medications.

[mickeyba1 in reply to Bassetmommer]

What is your egfr?? I am mildly under target weight, bmi 23. Would like to gain weight but it is difficult on ozempic. My egfr is 49 down 11 points from February. Seems like all diabetic meds hurt kidney function, some more than others. I will tell my pcp I want off glyxambi as it is known to harm kidneys. The free style libre glucose monitor has been a big help reducing blood sugar and it is NOT harmful to kidneys, like all meds are. Do you have diabetes??

[orangecity41 NKF Ambassador]

Congratulation!. Keep on your diet.

[CKDnomore3953]

Hi Bassetmommer, Congratulations on your improved blood test results. It is always gratifying to see that what you are doing is working. I have been following a Vegan plant based diet for three months to help maintain my kidney function. I am 72 years old with an eGFR that ranges between 47 and 60 and at my most recent blood test in August 2021 was at 48. I use Cronometer to keep track of the minerals I consume with my fruits and vegetables, but I have a hard time tracking PRAL, ORAC and AGE’s. Do you track those items on your diet? If yes, do you have an easy way to track them?Thanks for all the positive feedback you give to everyone on this forum. You have helped me and I am sure you have helped many other people with your supportive comments and information.

[Skeptix in reply to CKDnomore3953]

If you have a subscription to cronometer you can get good reports - levels of everything over time periods you choose. One of the bit of info is a PRAL indicator for your overall diet. It takes the form of an analogue speedometer with a green area that you aim for the indicator needle to be in. The green area goes light at the ends of the band and is darker in the middle of the band, pointing you towards the sweet spot to be aimed for.

The largely vegan, low protein diet sees me in sweet spot..

Dunno if it does ORAC or AGE. Isn't AGE just the blackened bits you get on BBQ food or overdone toast and the like? And so just avoid rather than track?

[CKDnomore3953 in reply to Skeptix]

Thanks for your reply Skeptix, I have seen the dials that you describe on Cronometer but currently none of the dials on my home page display PRAL (Potential Renal Acid Load) levels. I’ll see if I can add a PRAL dial. Yes you are right - AGE (Advanced Glycation End products) are the blackened bits that occur on cooked foods when the fat in the food is browned at high heats. Those blackened bits are hard on the kidneys according to several studies included in Hull’s book. I think you have mentioned that you are following his diet - as I am attempting to do also. I like stir fried vegetable recipes but I always try to cook over low heat to avoid creating AGEs.

[Bassetmommer NKF Ambassador in reply to CKDnomore3953]

I have not idea what AGE, PRAL or ORAC is. Please tell me as I want to know.

[Skeptix in reply to Bassetmommer]

PRAL is potential renal acid load. A number attached to eat food telling you where it sits on the alkaline / acid scale. Positive numbers are acid (the bigger the number the more acid). Negative is alkaline / ditto.

And acidic diet leads to metabolic acidosis with CKD-ers, amongst other things. Meat is high acid. Chedder cheese very high acid. Veg is alkaline.

If you're eating a plant based diet and not much/any dairy then your diet will be alkaline. At least, the needle is firmly in the green zone on my Cronometer tracking app for my consuming an overall alkaline diet.

AGE is advanced glycation end products. Or the burnt bits on food when subjected to high heat cooking processes. Not sure whether that extends to browned bits (like bread crust). Bad for you apparently

ORAC Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity. To do with antioxidant levels in food (you want high ORAC. Not sure if it's quite considered mainstream science and I gather the idea has fallen somewhat out of favour

All stuff covered in the multitude of possible approaches to be considered in Lee Hull's book.

[CKDnomore3953 in reply to Skeptix]

Great explanations of PRAL, ORAC and AGE. There are so many things that can harm our kidneys, but each thing that we do to help lighten the filtering load can possibly keep our kidneys from losing function. I think I have been chronically dehydrated all my life because I never felt thirsty so I drank very little water. I am sure that has negatively affected my kidneys. I drink lots of water now.

[ntsgls11 in reply to Skeptix]

I'm overwhelmed trying to plan a plant based diet. Have a tele-visit scheduled w Davita educator and w my nephro (new dx'd. Will get results of kidney ultrasound & recent labs) I would like specific dietary goals for sodium, potassium, phosphate, etc.. Do Nephro or dietician usually provide these? After reviewing comments re Cronometer app it's not clear to me if it is useful to help track these. I am making a list of questions for both appts and would like your suggestions to how to minimize the great stress/anxiety I have for managing the micro parts of a plant based diet. Thank you.

[Skeptix in reply to ntsgls11]

Hi.

Am sorry that stress and anxiety are your companions. I hope the below helps assuage things somewhat.

It's hard to comment when you've no labs to present but generally, from own experience, you can make significant progress without having to get overly detailed about things.

1. Meat/dairy/eggs. Consuming it just doesn't stack up on any number of fronts and you seem to have accepted that. I have the odd egg. If I'm stuck and there is no veggie option in a restaurant I'll eat a bit of meat. What matters is long term averages. My eating perhaps 3 quarter pounders worth of meat in 4 months isn't going to skew the overall result or plant benefit very much. So don't sweat it.

2. Protein. You can set a daily target and Cronometer will keep you up to speed once you're faithfully logging food intake.

0.6g /kg body weight is considered sustainable (sustainable minimum) and its well doable on a plant based diet. You could decide to give yourself a bit of a margin and go 0.7gr/kg body weight just to keep things easier to implement at the start.

There's protein in everything so you'll never struggle to hit your budget. Keeping IN budget is a different matter!! But its not that hard -Yoyou just need to learn what it is that contains lots of protein and go easy on those things.

You get the hang of it quickly:

- you'll invariably find yourself overshooting your protein budget on a particular day.

- you then examine your log see where you 'spent' your protein budget and so you learn what's protein heavy. its always surprising what it is that blowing the protein budget - Mickey Mouse little things like tucking into a small Alpro soya yogurt every day. That was one of my trip ups: it tasted like dairy yogurt but it was costing a lot of my budget.

Now it's an occasional treat.

You find that veggie processed good is invariably high in protein: Linda McCartney stuff usually contains as much protein as its meat equivalent, for instance.

3. Outside that kind of monitoring, I can eat all the veg I like. I just keep it varied in type and colour and that's that. I make sure I hit my calories (not the easiest thing) but other than that things seem to work.

4. There is no plan as such. I'm a spontaneous type so the idea of of set plan...ugh.

Find some good recipes that you can mass produce and freeze: a stew, a curry, that kind of thing. It helps giving you a solid basis you can turn to without having to think about what's for dinner every day. You enter the receipt on cronometer and then just dial in your portion size.

5. You'll get quick with cronometer. My diet doesn't vary enormously so it becomes routine to enter stuff. If I have something processed or a takeout or go out to eat, I just aprox the meal entry on Cronometer rather than get a anally retentive about logging every detail. It's the longer term averages that matter not the day

You might have specific things to trim that I don't have to. You might need to limit potassium for instance, I don't know. In which case it gets more involved. But again, I'd aim simple rather than overly focus.

[nascar4433 in reply to Skeptix]

Great post...thank you for taking the time to explain everything. I'm also struggling to find a balance from my old life (processed, quick microwave-type meals, Lunchables, etc.) and my new life...was prescribed low-residue diet last year for gastrointestinal & swallowing issues, and now nephro added low-potassium diet (3b CKD & Hyperkalemia). Thanks to this site and these type of conversations, appears now that I also need to include low-protein plant-based living to protect kidneys. Waiting for approved referral to a nutritionist/dietician (altho some of this community say it's nearly impossible to find a renal specialist for this...am hoping at least to find a knowledgeable person...lol). So again, thank you for taking the time to help educate us "newbies" into the 3b world and what we need to do to protect what we still have. Much appreciated! (my eGFR is a steady 34).

[Skeptix in reply to nascar4433]

Glad to help. It would be a great help to get a renal dietician on board if you can. There are online RD's such as KidneyRD.com you might consider - they came across well in a phone conversation I had before finding one in my home country. Pricey but, since you'll be saving a fortune on all that processed food it ought to be possible! You might only need them to help you get going but certainly it's good to have someone keep an eye on you.

That low residue diet complicates thing a bit - is it permanent or for a flare? You see, cutting protein down means eating lots of fruit and veg to make up calories. And fruit and veg often means potassium and fibre.

How is your urea / BUN reading? If out of spec then that's a chief reason to trim protein intake: protein directly connected to the amount of urea your kidneys have to filter.

Ask your nephrologist about it. The latest NKF guidelines promote low and very low protein diets So a "why not?" would be a fitting question to ask if your nephrologist says 'no need'

[ChevyHappy]

I am so glad for you. You are always so helpful on this site, and it is nice to get good news from someone who deserves it.

[Sophiebun11]

Kudos on a job well done.