Oatmeal is one of the healthiest foods you could eat for diabetes or heart disease diets. This month we are spreading the word about how oatmeal can be a game changer in your life and improve your health.

Oklahoma City, OK (I-Newswire) January 2, 2013 – Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC, Renal Diet HQ and CEO Mathea Ford, RD/LD announces their support of National Oatmeal Month by releasing a blog series on oatmeal and related topics. Over 40 years of research has shown that consuming 3g of soluble fiber a day can reduce bad cholesterol and can help reduce the risk of heart disease. What a better way to get the soluble fiber than with oatmeal?

The topics of discussion included in the blog series are as follows: Benefits Of A Good Breakfast, Heart Disease, Diabetes Management, Weight Management and Cholesterol. Both general information and in-depth articles will be published via the blog during the January 2013 month in conjunction with National Oatmeal Month. We also will be adding oatmeal recipes to the blog that fit right in with your special diet, whether it’s kidney disease, heart disease or diabetes. Did you know that more oatmeal is consumed in January than any other month of the year?

Healthy Diet Menus for You, LLC provides diet and nutrition expertise along with meal planning for cardiac patients and the heart conscious as well as meal planning and diets for diabetes management. The Healthy Diet Menus for You, LLC website provides valuable information for all types of cardiac and diabetic patients through an extensive information library of articles and a fully functional blog written by the CEO and Registered Dietitian, Mathea Ford. Healthy Diet Menus for You, LLC is committed to bringing the utmost quality and service to it is client base through it’s website and toll free phone number. Specializing in this very complicated and unique group of patients, Healthy Diet Menus for You, LLC is proud to be a superb resource that can be relied upon by it’s clients.

Renal Diet HQ specializes in renal diets and meal planning both for pre-dialysis and dialysis patients. The Renal Diet HQ website provides valuable information for all types of kidney disease patients through an extensive information library of articles and a fully functional blog written by the CEO and Registered Dietitian, Mathea Ford. Renal Diet HQ is committed to bringing the utmost quality and service to it is client base through it’s website. Specializing in this very complicated and unique group of patients, Renal Diet HQ is proud to be a superb resource that can be relied upon by it’s clients.

Renal Diet HQ and Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC are located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and are operated by the principals Mathea Ford RD/LD MBA and Chief Executive Officer and Donovan Ford, Chief Operations Officer. Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC was launched in January 2011 as the brain child of Mathea Ford who is also currently serving as CEO. Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC provides meal plans for diabetic, gestational diabetic, renal, renal diabetic and cardiac patients.

About Healthy Diet Menus for You, LLC:
Healthy Diet Menus for You provides people with set weekly menus. Each menu is specifically targeted towards particular health requirements. Save time by subscribing to our easy to use menu plans.

Company Contact Information
Healthy Diet Menus for You, LLC
Mathea Ford
PO Box 6554
73153

Renal Diet Headquarters is celebrating National Nutrition Month with you. This March, we encourage you to eat right, your way, every day by using the skills and information you have to improve your health. As a kidney patient, your diet matters.

Oklahoma City, OK (I-Newswire) March 13, 2013 – Renal Diet Headquarters announces the their support for National Nutrition Month®,National Nutrition Month® is a nutrition education and information campaign sponsored annually by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. The campaign is designed to support healthy eating habits and healthy activity habits as well. As with any form of nutrition therapy, diet and exercise go hand in hand. The National Nutrition Month® 2013 theme, “Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day,” encourages personalized healthy eating styles and recognizes that food preferences, lifestyle, cultural and ethnic traditions and health concerns all impact individual food choices.

As a member of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, CEO Mathea Ford was quoted at the beginning of March, saying “Healthy Diet Menus For You and Renal Diet HQ are proud to support the efforts on an annual basis of the Academy, the employees of our company strive to motivate our clients to the standards set forth by the Academy. We will continue to support the efforts of healthy eating and health exercising as it applies to the entire population in the United States and our client base. We believe we will continue to see drastic changes in the eating habits of our ever growing population and our health and our health care system will be better for it.”

Renal Diet HQ continues to expand the meal plan and educational offering with the expected launch of Renal Diet HQ IQ in the coming months. In this series CEO Mathea Ford RD/LD will continue to build on the information requested by our clients and expand first in the area of pre-dialysis kidney disease with the IQ series.

Renal Diet HQ consists of a monthly subscription plans that include weekly meal plans for renal patients from stage 3 kidney disease through kidney dialysis. Each meal plan consists of recipes, nutritional information, and full grocery lists. Recipes provide full ingredient lists and complete instructions as well as specific nutritional information by recipe for our customers. The nutritional information includes: calories, fat, saturated fats, sodium, carbohydrates, fiber, sugar, protein, cholesterol, phosphorus, and potassium, all of which are important to a person needing a kidney disease diet plan. Grocery lists are provided for meals individually and also for the entire seven day plan so you can go to the grocery store and get an entire week of meals or send someone for you.

Renal Diet HQ is committed to bringing the utmost quality and service to it is client base through it’s website and toll free phone number. Specializing in this very complicated and unique group of patients, Renal Diet HQ is proud to be a superb resource that can be relied upon by it’s clients to meet the demands that our client’s desire.

Renal Diet HQ is operated by Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma operated by the principals Mathea Ford RD/LD MBA and Chief Executive Officer and Donovan Ford, Chief Operations Officer. Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC was launched in January 2011 as the brain child of Mathea Ford who is also currently serving as CEO of this start up. Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC provides meal plans for diabetic, gestational diabetic, renal, renal diabetic and cardiac patients.

About Healthy Diet Menus for You, LLC:
Healthy Diet Menus for You provides people with set weekly menus. Each menu is specifically targeted towards particular health requirements. Save time by subscribing to our easy to use menu plans.

Company Contact Information
Healthy Diet Menus for You, LLC
Mathea Ford
PO Box 6554
73153
Phone : 4057937306

Did your doctor just tell you that you have stage 3 kidney disease and you have no idea where to start?  I want to tell you that is unusual, but it’s not.  I know it’s not what you want to hear, either.

Listen, though.  I know that you are ready to start making some changes and that is all it takes to turn it around in the right direction.  I hear lots of people saying, “When will my kidney disease progress?  Or How Long Until I Start Dialysis?”  Don’t think about it that way!  You can slow the progression down with some simple changes.

What Are The Basics To Follow?

First of all, you should see a nephrologist.  It’s no longer a good idea to stick your head in the sand and figure it out later.  Now is the later you have been waiting for.  A nephrologist helps you to get your medications and disease process under control so you don’t continue on the downward spiral to dialysis.  If you are willing and able to make some changes, the time is now.  Nephrologist’s have studied kidneys and kidney disease extensively, and can guide you down the right path that your general practitioner cannot.

Next, nutrition is key to improving your kidney function.  Yes, there may be some medications that are affecting your kidneys and you should change them (that’s what the nephrologist does).  You may even need to take more medications but they will improve your kidneys as well.  But because the kidneys are key to removing the waste in your blood and make urine, you need to provide less of the food that contributes to damage to the kidney.  Did that make sense?  It will…

1.  Calories are important to understand.  You might have diabetes or heart disease, so you worry about other parts of your diet.  But as your kidney stage advances you will find it more difficult to eat right and keep your weight up.  You will consume fewer calories just because you don’t feel very well.  It’s exhausting for your body to be going through this, and you feel the fatigue.

2.  Protein is the 2nd most important component in a healthy kidney diet.  Protein maintains your muscle tissues, helps heal wounds, and create your bones, skin and blood.  Whew!  That’s a lot for them to do.  When you eat more protein than you need, it breaks down into waste products in your blood stream that are difficult for your body to process.  So you are putting an extra burden on your kidneys.  You should eat a moderate amount of protein – probably in the range of 6-7 ounces of meat or poultry or fish daily.  You might eat that much at one meal, but now you need to spread it out between your entire day.  It’s a portion size issue.

3.  Speaking of portion size, a three ounce portion of meat is about the size of a deck of cards – that is height and length and width.  So, it’s not huge.  Sources of protein are everywhere.  Mainly in your meats, fish, and poultry.  Some better choices for meat to get less protein are egg substitutes, shrimp, tofu, roasted chicken and stews.  Make your sandwiches with thinner slices of meats and add lots of vegetables to the sandwich to make it more filling.  (By the way – in dialysis you eat more protein because the process of dialysis loses protein)

4.  Fat can add calories but you want to make sure it’s the right kind of fat.  Not saturated fat.  You are at higher risk for heart disease as someone with kidney disease, so you need to eat the unsaturated fats – like olive and canola oils.  You don’t want to eat trans-fats either.  Saturated fats are in red meats, whole milk, butter and lard.  Better choices are corn oil, safflower oil, olive oil, peanut oil and canola oil.  So, if you are in need of additional calories to keep from losing too much weight, you should find ways to add healthy fats to your meals to increase the calories but not stop your heart!

5.  Sodium adds to your issues, so watch it carefully.  Sodium is found in some of the strangest foods.  It causes your body to retain fluid and puts extra strain on your heart and kidneys.  Reading the food labels is great – look for items with less than 10% of your daily value listed.  You should try to limit your intake to 1,500 mg or less per day.  In addition to regular table salt, sodium is found in regular canned vegetables, hot dogs, packaged starches, frozen vegetables with sauces, frozen meals, canned soup, tomato sauce and many snack foods.  Use alternative seasonings – like a lemon juice (always my favorite with oil for salad) or herb seasoning.  Just steer clear of the “salt substitutes” that contain potassium chloride.

6.  Potassium – it works in mysterious ways but mainly it’s used by your muscles to work.  When your blood level is too high (serum level over 5.0) you should limit your intake of high potassium foods so you can keep from adding to the problem.  Some high potassium foods are oranges, melons, bananas, potatoes and tomatoes.  Low potassium foods are apples, cranberries, pears, strawberries, pineapple, and boiled cauliflower.  Don’t bother limiting potassium unless your labs indicate it’s too high, though.  You need to focus on protein and sodium first!

7.  Make sure you know your labs – phosphorus levels especially – so you can limit it as well if you need to.  Phosphorus is very hard to limit because it’s in almost everything.  So try to manage what you can with it and if your doctor tells you to limit phosphorus, ask about phosphorus binders to help.  High phosphorus foods include: milk, cheese, yogurt, beans, nuts, dark colas, and processed meats.  Foods that are low phosphorus that you can eat instead are: non-dairy creamer, rice, sherbet, popcorn, rice cereal, clear sodas and rootbeer.

I know it’s a hard transition.  I have created a meal planning system that helps – and each month you get a new guide that goes in depth to provide the needed information to help you get through that stage and make better decisions.  If you are interested, read more about a predialysis meal plan here.

How Does Secondary Hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) Affect My Kidney Disease Diet?

First, let me explain what SHPT is.  Your parathyroid glands are responsible for keeping your bones and calcium levels in your blood at a healthy range.  They are located in your neck on the back of your thyroid gland.  Most of the time, you don’t even know they are there.  They are near your thyroid gland, but work separately and produce PTH (Parathyroid hormone).  PTH is responsible for maintaining the correct amount of calcium in the blood and bones, as well as ensuring calcium is absorbed from the digestive system, and finally controlling how much is excreted in the urine.  (That is the connection to kidney disease).  The amounts of other minerals that are part of bone growth – phosphorus and Vitamin D – are also critically important to the parathyroid.  Doctors measure the amount of PTH as an indicator of bone disease.

Secondary Hyperparathyroidism (SHPT) as related to kidney disease is an overproduction of PTH.  This is caused by the changes in the kidneys affecting other mineral levels in the blood and causing the body to overproduce PTH.  In persons with CKD starting in stage 3, damage to the kidney affects the functioning amount of kidney and cause these changes to possibly occur.

What Causes The Body To Produce More PTH?

While that is a complicated question, I would like to answer it in a way that is easier to understand.  Please remember – I am not your doctor!

Initially, your functioning kidney mass is decreased.  This happens because of the damage over time to the nephrons in your kidneys.  Your doctor may have told you a percentage of your kidneys that are still functioning.  Once the amount of your kidneys that are working is decreased beyond a certain level (not exactly clear how much and it varies by individual), 2 things happen.

1.  Kidneys are responsible to activate the Vitamin D in our body so it works.  With less functional kidney, lower amounts of vitamin D3 are available in the blood stream.

2.  Kidneys also excrete the phosphorus in our bodies, and with a lower capacity to produce urine, phosphorus builds up in the blood stream.

Those two events that happen together bring about a decrease in serum (blood level) calcium.  A decrease in the amount of calcium, plus a decrease in the amount of Vitamin D3 and an increase in the amount of phosphorus in the blood cause your body to think you need more PTH (because it needs to increase the amount of calcium in your blood stream to a normal level).

What Does Vitamin D Do In Our Body?

PTH works to “normalize” the amount of calcium available in your bloodstream.  Calcium is used for many things in your body, and it needs to be available to your cells.  So, an increased amount of PTH will cause your bones to be broken down more quickly so that the calcium is available in your bloodstream.

Vitamin D3 happens to be very important in the actions and levels of PTH in our body.  You may be aware that our bodies can “make” vitamin D by exposing our skin to sunlight for 10-20 minutes every day.  That vitamin D our skin makes has to be transported to the kidney to be changed into the “active” form our body uses.  It keeps us from overdosing on Vitamin D with too much sunlight.

Once vitamin D becomes activated, it can work in our bodies.  It stimulates some other hormones that tell the parathyroid we have enough PTH.  It also decreases PTH indirectly by increasing the amount of calcium we absorb in our “gut” through our intestines.  This increases the amount of calcium in our blood stream, and keeps the amount of PTH at a normal level.  But once you have a decreased level of vitamin D in your body, it does not work to increase the level of calcium in your blood stream as efficiently (you don’t absorb as much) so your body starts increasing the amount of PTH to accommodate your calcium needs.

How Do Our Bodies Handle Phosphorus?

When the eGFR decreases to less than 60 ml/min, your ability to remove phosphorus from your blood via your kidneys becomes altered.  The part of your nephrons that are still working compensate by increasing the removal of phosphorus because your blood levels are increased.  This helps to maintain normal phosphorus levels in your blood stream.
Once you progress further in kidney disease, your nephrons eventually become unable to excrete enough phosphorus to compensate, and that is when you start to notice hyperphosphatemia. (elevated blood phosphorus).  So, as the amount of phosphorus increases in your blood, PTH is secreted to compensate.  Calcium can bind with phosphorus (if they are out of balance) in the blood stream and form particles that then are deposited in organs and blood vessels.  As phosphorus levels increase, this risk is higher, so your body reacts by breaking down bones and increasing the calcium levels in the blood stream to even out the levels.  This causes the bones to be weakened over time, and calcium particles (those bound with phosphorus) to deposit in areas of the body such as the heart.

What Are The Goals Of Treating A Patient With SHPT?

Overall, the goal is to normalize the levels of the hormones and vitamin D so that the body is not breaking down bone to compensate for increased phosphorus levels.  Preventing bone disease, called renal osteodystrophy, is key to the management of the disease.  Patients with kidney disease are at a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, and calcium deposited in the heart can cause further problems.

In stage 3, it is very possible that the levels will be normal, but your body is working overtime to compensate and ensure that you are kept in that normal range.  National KDOQI guidelines recommend that all patients with a eGFR < 60 ml/min/1.73m2 undergo an evaluation of serum calcium, phosphorus and PTH levels.  KDOQI guidelines recommend testing once per year starting with the onset of Stage 3 CKD.  PTH should be the key test for patients because of the way the body adjusts to keep calcium, Vitamin D, and phosphorus levels in the normal range by increasing the levels of PTH.

Management And Treatment of PTH and SHPT

KDOQI guidelines have recommended target ranges for PTH and calcium levels in patients with Stage 3 – 5 kidney disease.  Based on those target ranges, the first course of action to improve the health of a patient with SHPT and suppress the levels of PTH is thought to be Vitamin D therapy.  As vitamin D plays such a role in our absorption of calcium, if a person can take in and absorb appropriate amounts of “active” vitamin D (doesn’t have to be processed by the kidneys), their calcium absorption rate should also improve.

In addition to Vitamin D, dietary therapy includes reduction of high phosphate foods.  Foods that are high in phosphate content include dairy products, meats, beans, dark sodas, beer and nuts.  Many of these foods are great sources of protein, so it is important to be cautious when eliminating foods.  You should focus on removing foods that are high in phosphate yet lower in protein, such as dark colas, cheese, milk, ice cream and beer.

You have to be careful about sources of protein because that can lead to malnutrition which affects outcomes once people start on dialysis.  Also, dietary phosphate restriction may not be adequate since most of our food contains phosphates.  Many doctors also recommend the use of phosphate binders as well.

Phosphate binding agents are taken with foods, up to 3-4 times per day, and attach to phosphate in the foods we eat causing it to remain in the digestive system and be excreted through stool.  They have to be taken with food or they don’t work effectively, yet it is difficult for people to be consistent and remember to take the medications.  Sometimes doctors use several different types of binders to achieve success.  Some phosphate binders can be found over the counter such as calcium carbonate and aluminum hydroxide.  But, you should talk to your doctor about it prior to initiating any additional intake.

What Should I Do About My SHPT?

First of all, discuss what it means with your doctor.  Develop that relationship so you can ask.  If you cannot, consider finding another doctor who will work with you.  If you need to make a longer appointment, you should tell the person booking the appointment that you have a lot of questions and request a longer appointment time.  That will keep your physician from feeling rushed.

At this point – if you have CKD Stage 3, it is recommended that you work with a nephrologist.  They are experts and will manage your kidney disease very well.  You may also want to find a local dietitian or check into a meal plan that meets your nutritional needs.  Decreasing the amount of phosphate in your diet, in addition to treatment with an active vitamin D medication can provide a great deal of improvement and reduce your risk of bone and cardiac complications.

Thanks for sticking with me through this entire article.  I enjoyed finding out what would help you and steering you in the right direction.  If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy one of my meal plans – Click here now to read more about Stage 3 or Stage 4 kidney meal plans.

 

 

 

 

We have just released the latest in our book series – The Kidney Friendly Diet Cookbook for Predialysis kidney disease.  You may have seen a lot of kidney diet cookbooks on Amazon, but this is one of the best ones on the internet.  I have provided a great deal of information about kidney disease for a predialysis patient.  You don’t need the standard “dialysis” information – you need lower protein and sodium than dialysis.

You need some specialized knowledge to parse out the right recipes for you.  I have done this and created several different groupings for the book.  You will get breakfast, vegetarian, dessert, beef, pork, seafood, poultry and more for you to make a complete meal.  This book has full color pictures of some recipes – I made some very special samples and tried these recipes out on my family!  They loved this food and so will you.

I hope you will look at it – on Amazon you can look inside!  So don’t wait – go there now.

Mathea Ford, Registered Dietitian and Author, released another book targeted at those with predialysis kidney disease. This book helps people plan their meals and gives them all the tools necessary to successfully delay the onset of kidney dialysis.

Oklahoma City, OK (I-Newswire) February 2, 2013 – Renal Diet Headquarters and CEO Mathea Ford, RD/LD announces the launch of her fourth book “The Kidney Friendly Diet Cookbook: Recipes For A Predialysis Kidney Disease Lifestyle”. Her book will be available beginning this week in print form via Amazon. This book includes many curated recipes that match a predialysis patients needs and includes all the neccesary nutritional values that are vital to a predialysis diet meal plan. Mathea spent months curating and preparing the foods for these recipes and this book. She is very grateful to all the friends and family that made the book possible including her fine group of employees at Renal Diet HQ and Healthy Diet Menus For You,LLC.

Currently, the book is priced at a very reasonable rate and is appropriate for those in need of recipes related to predialysis stages of kidney disease. With kidney disease at any stage, a meal plan and diet are needed to ultimately delay further kidney damage. One in ten people develop kidney disease throughout the world, and this is a timely launch to aid people in reducing the risk of further kidney damage.

Brought to you by Healthy Diet Menus for You, LLC, Renal Diet HQ specializes in renal diets and meal planning both for pre-dialysis, renal diabetics and dialysis patients. The Renal Diet HQ website provides valuable information for all types of kidney disease patients through an extensive information library of articles and a fully functional blog written by the CEO and Registered Dietitian, Mathea Ford. Renal Diet HQ is committed to bringing the utmost quality and service to it is client base through it’s website and toll free phone number. Specializing in this very complicated and unique group of patients, Renal Diet HQ is proud to be a superb resource that can be relied upon by it’s clients to meet the demands that our client’s desire.

Renal Diet HQ is operated by Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC located in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and is operated by the principals Mathea Ford RD/LD MBA and Chief Executive Officer and Donovan Ford, Chief Operations Officer. Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC was launched in January 2011 as the brain child of Mathea Ford who is also currently serving as CEO. Healthy Diet Menus For You, LLC provides meal plans for diabetic, gestational diabetic, renal, renal diabetic and cardiac patients.

How Do I Know What Kidney Diet To Follow?

Your kidney diet prescription is closely related to your eGFR and your percentage kidney function.  Your eGFR is the amount of creatinine that your kidneys are filtering through.  The lower it is, the higher stage of kidney disease you have.

• Stage 1 = 90+ eGFR with other conditions like diabetes and heart disease
• Stage 2 = 60 – 89 eGFR
• Stage 3 = 30 – 59 eGFR (30-44 is close to Stage 4)
• Stage 4 = 15 – 29 eGFR
• Stage 5 = Below 15 eGFR
• ESRD – On dialysis due to inability to function.  Less than 10 % of kidneys are functional

As you can see from above, your eGFR is fairly close to how well your kidneys are functioning.  If you have about 20% kidney function left, you are likely in stage 4 kidney disease, and needing to really stick to a low protein diet.

You are probably feeling fatigued, trouble with sleeping, and stress.  Man, are you feeling a lot of stress.

Following A Kidney Diet In Stage 4 Kidney Disease

The first things you need to focus on are getting your diet and your health manageable.  If your nephrologist is saying, prepare for dialysis, then you should take steps to prepare.  If you are motivated to make the changes now to your kidney disease because you are not wanting to go on dialysis, then follow a healthy meal plan and start taking your medications that you are prescribed.

You need to make sure your albumin levels are doing well, even though you may require a limited protein amount to keep your kidneys healthy.  Albumin is a blood protein that is able to show doctors if you are healthy.  Yours might be low, try to find out the number it is and where your nephrologist wants you to be.  Then add some protein to your diet that comes in the form of vegetable and starches.  You can add some quinoa or some noodles or rice.  All of those contain additional protein but since it’s not animal protein it’s not as full of phosphorus and potassium.  You are better off eating the vegetable and starch proteins than too much animal protein.  Now, you should get some animal protein, just don’t over do it.  Your kidneys are still failing.

Try to reduce your stress.  Sleep better and longer – most of us only get 5 or less hours per night – aim for taking care of yourself and go to bed early if you have to.  Sleeping better also probably requires you turning off the TV at bedtime and going to sleep in a darkened room.

Diet Plan For Kidney Disease Should Be Customized

You will find plenty of options for help with your dialysis diet, because Medicare reimbursement allows you to see a dietitian and get more help.  You are pre-dialysis, and you need to know your diet and how you fit in.

You are at a point of needing to seriously measure the amount of food that you eat if you want to stop your kidney disease progression.  I’m not saying that you can stop it, but to have a chance you should control the amount of food you eat as far as protein is concerned.  Stick to a plan of 40-60 gm of protein per day.  That is only about 2 ounces of beef, pork or poultry per meal.  That is not much.  And limit your sodium.  At this point you are making your meals at home.

Bottom line, if you are serious about trying to slow down your kidney disease progression, you will need to get a predialysis meal plan and stick to it.  It’s one of the best ways to make it through this rough time.

In a new article, published in November of 2012, researchers looked at whether or not people on PD were more or less happy than others on different types of dialysis.  The researchers made an attempt to look at the values and priorities in people’s lives to see how the dialysis was affecting them.  This study looked at other studies to determine a general outcome.

The researchers looked at several things:

We identified 7 themes: resilience and confidence (determination and overcoming vicissitudes), support structures (strong family relationship, peer support, professional dedication, social abandonment, and desire for holistic care), overwhelming responsibility (disruptive intrusion, family burden, and onerous treatment regimen), control (gaining bodily awareness, achieving independence and self-efficacy, and information seeking), freedom (flexibility and autonomy, retaining social functioning, and ability to travel), sick identity (damage to self-esteem and invisible suffering), and disablement (physical incapacitation and social loss and devaluation).

When you think about the way that peritoneal dialysis is viewed by the medical field, it is seen as a great thing for people to be able to accomplish more of their lives – keep on working, not have to travel to the dialysis center, and independence.  But the researchers also found that people were not necessarily happy with the way things were.

If a person did not have a good social structure or family relationships, they might be more depressed and alone feeling.  It seemed more likely with those who did CAPD instead of APD since they have to have the dialysate in the peritoneum and do exchanges throughout the day.

This article changed my perspective some on how I view the different options for prolonging life in ESRD.  You may need to consider many “different” obstacles once you find out you need dialysis instead of choosing blindly.  In my first book about pre-dialysis, I wrote about how much your attitude about how renal disease would affect you impacted your outcome.  That same holds true based on this study.

If you are in need of more information on dialysis meal planning, head on over to our meal planning program and see if we can help!

Make A Renal Diet Casserole Recipe

Learning about a renal diet is one thing, trying to create your own meals is another.  I know you want to make meals at home and be healthier for your kidneys, but it’s very hard to find the right recipes and ways to prepare foods that are good and healthy for you.  I want you to be able to grab a few things and create a good casserole.

How To Make A Renal Diet Recipe

First of all, think about what stage of kidney disease you are in.  You are able to eat more protein in dialysis than pre-dialysis, so change the recipe accordingly.  You need to be aware of the types of foods to avoid and include – like whether or not you can have higher potassium foods as part of the recipes.  You might not need to restrict potassium or phosphorus.  (Keep in mind that almost all food contains phosphorus so you can’t get away from it completely).  When you are adding foods together, consider if you need low potassium vegetables, low phosphorus foods and low sodium foods.

Adding The Right Items Together

Here is your starter recipe:

1 – 1.5 pounds of lean protein (beans, poultry, tuna, shrimp, pork or beef)

3-4 cups chopped vegetables (here is where you need to consider low and high potassium foods)

2 cups starchy vegetables or grains (rice, whole grain pasta, biscuits, noodles)

1/2 to 1 cup liquid – low sodium chicken stock works well (so does low sodium pasta sauce and light gravy)

1/2 cup of yummy toppings (chopped nuts, bread crumbs, crushed crackers or cheese)

Mix those together in a 2 quart baking dish and bake at 350′F for 30-45 minutes.  Viola!  You have dinner.

Keeping It Low Sodium and Delicious

First of all, this is a perfect way to add together the foods you like and have a meal.  You may have become very picky in your eating, or you just want a change.  Make up a casserole, and freeze it in smaller amounts or eat on it for a couple of days.  I think this makes a great meal for you to serve to your family as well, and they won’t think there is anything special about it except it’s delicious.  And you will know it’s the right thing for you to eat.

If you are looking for renal diet recipes, check out our meal plans that are made for predialysis, renal diabetic, and dialysis patients  You get a weekly set of 7 evening meals that meet your nutritional needs and taste great too!

How Much Phosphorus Should I Eat?

If you have kidney disease, you certainly know it’s a difficult diet to manage.  That is one of the reasons we offer a meal planning solution – so you can control your kidney diet much easier and without the struggle – which reduces your stress and makes you healthier.  Either way, you have to wonder about all the nutrients you have to control.

Phosphorus is found in most foods you eat.  It’s part of the process of creating energy, so it’s a good thing that it is so plentiful – that is until you need to control it for your kidneys.  As your kidney disease progresses, you will find that you need to lower the amount you consume – most people with kidney disease should limit their diet to 800 – 1000 mg per day.

How Do I Lower My Phosphorus Intake?

Foods that are high in protein are usually also high in phosphorus, so as you progress in kidney diets from stage 1 - – - > stage 5, you will naturally eat less phosphorus.  Your decrease in protein will also give your kidneys a much needed break.

Phosphorus binders are another way you can lower your phosphorus intake.  A phosphorus binder works to keep the phosphorus in foods from being absorbed into your bloodstream.  So it passes through your digestive system without entering your blood stream and keeps your levels down.  Tums is one of the most common phosphorus binders available.  Usually, phosphorus binders are taken in conjunction with a meal – immediately before or when you start eating – as that is when they are most effective.

I Don’t Know If I Need To Limit My Phosphorus Intake

If your doctor has not mentioned it, you should ask.  But you can relax a little if you are not on dialysis since your body is still processing the phosphorus – and you will be on a lower protein diet anyway.  That will naturally decrease the amount of phosphorus in your food and intake.  Sticking to less than 1,000 mg of phosphorus can be hard, but you can certainly lower the amount that you eat by reading labels.

Cheese and milk products, as well as meats, are highest in phosphorus.  You can decrease your intake of those foods if you feel it necessary, but you should also know your labs first and see if you even need to limit the amount of phosphorus.

The single most important thing you can do to reduce the rate of progression of your kidney disease is to lower the amount of protein that you eat which will naturally lower your phosphorus consumption.

Learn more about all of the latest news and tips about renal diets and kidney disease from stage 1 – dialysis by joining our newsletter and get weekly updates.  Click here to go to the sign up page.