Alcoholic Beverages and Renal Disease
Podcast #64 Released on January 15, 2018
It depends on the stage of your renal problem, you may be allowed to drink. However, moderation is the key to avoid complications.
We all know that your kidneys and your liver work and mainly your liver process the alcohol that you drink. Once you have kidney disease, you wonder if its okay to have a beer or a glass of wine or even a mixed drink and how often is that a good idea.
This is one of the biggest thing that people come to my blog to read about so I am posting the blog post that I’m using right here and I have talked about this for a while.
I think that it is important to realize that moderation is the key so you want to think about whether you can drink or not in terms of several different factors. Bottom line, usually the answer is ‘Yes’ in moderation but it all depends on several different things.
So let’s think about this if you’re in earlier stages of kidney disease then you’re not having as much difficulty. You’re really trying to just manage your diet, watch your salt, watch your amount of protein that you take in and so an alcoholic drink, one or two. One for women, two for men is not excessive. All of this is said with the knowledge that you’re going to talk to your doctor about this before you go start drinking. It’s not going to necessarily benefit you if you don’t normally drink to start drinking on a regular basis. But one of the biggest concerns is dialysis.
If you’re on dialysis, then any fluid from alcohol is going to be considered part of your daily fluid intake so you are usually restricted on your food intake and you just have to decide if you want to have that alcohol count as part of your daily fluid intake and you definitely want to talk to your nephrologist about it prior to even drinking. They might have different limitations, so they may say one drink per week or on special occasions.
The next thing that you want to think about is medications so alcohol can interact with some of your medications and that will make a difference as far as how much you can drink. Certain prescriptions can cause difference as far as how much you can drink. Certian prescriptions can cause your blood alcohol sugar level to go up higher they can be highly impaired by drinking alcohol and they can affect how you’re able to do things with alcohol can be a stronger effect.
Pay attention to the ingredients that are in an alcohol beverage so beer or wine, you want to know what’s in the beer or wine but a Bloody Mary is high in potassium and sodium and it’s made from tomato juice so that’s not a beverage that you’re typically going to want to order. You’re going to want to know what’s the ingredients in any different type of drink that you’re doing, you’re probably better off with sticking with wine or beer. The amount really matters so one beer, one wine and one and a half ounces of liquor is considered a drink so five ounces of wine, twelve ounces of beer so that’s considered a drink. You really just want to watch this in moderation if it’s a problem and if you have a problem with alcohol or you tend to drink too much then you probably should avoid it.
Think about other conditions that are related. If you have kidney problems and liver problems, you definitely don’t want to be drinking alcohol because the alcohol is process through your liver and that’s going to affect that. It’s typically deemed safe for people with just renal disease to have a glass or two of alcohol but definitely want to check with your doctor so just be aware that you just need to go and talk to your doctor about it. You need to consider your medications; you need to consider what stage you’re in; you need to consider how it’s going to play into your diet.
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