Atkins and Kidneys

[triplel]

OK, I even feel stupid asking this, but my RN mother in law who i really can't stand came over this morning, and she was telling me to get off of atkins immediatly because it is harmful to your kidneys. Now, i know i read somewhere about this being a common bash of atkins, but i wanted to read it again so next time she says something i can be educated! LOL So if anyone can lead me to the correct place i would be ever so grateful....

Just another question... she told me to go on SB diet. Can anyone tell me if they ever tried it before, and how it was different than Atkins? I personally like being on Atkins and feel great, so i don't see the point in changing any thing. I like Dr. Atkins approach to healthy living... just wondering what everyone's opinions are on this. Thanks!

[Lyssie]

I dunno the kidney thing - no doubt 2big will answer this since I believe it's related to the whole diabetic thingie. If you're talking about South Beach, honestly, it's a way for people who think that Dr. Atkins said to go eat a cow with a side of butter, drink some oil and have bacon as a snack to do Low Carb. It uses the same principles as Atkins, it just gives you phases instead of rungs and from what I can tell, doesn't care so much about introducing carbs in a healthy level kind of way and building off of that so much as jumping back into it. I believe it also gives you a higher amount of daily carbs from the beginning too.

[Desertthorn]

I've been on this board longer than snot and can tell you, while there have been a few questions about this issue, and an occasion kidney infection complaint, no one that I know of has had any kidney problems.
MIL doesn't know what she's talking about, she just heard that from someone, but never read anything in any medical lit that we know of.

[jcapulet]

I've done SB before. The main philosphy behind it is that you eat "good carbs" not low carb, and it has a high focus on the glycemic index.

I lost weight on it, but after trying Atkins, find that I like Atkins better. For me the drawback with SB was that everything was low fat. I just like Atkins better because there are so many foods I like, and it works.

As for kidney problems...have you heard of anyone here having kidney problems?

I'm sure someone here can give more info though, about that.

[sadie147]

SB is a very good woe as well, As jcapulet said it's more 'good carbs' rather than low carb, and also concentrates on 'good fats' and avoids sat fat. It is more GI focused. You also add back foods like you do on atkins, but not in any particular order, it's not as structured that way.

If you want more information this board has a great sister board that is for south beach support. it's at http://www.sbdbb.com/

I think it's all personal preference on the types of foods you like. I've tried both, and found that I like the foods on atkins better. I have a friend that tried both and liked SB better (and did reach goal as well).

[dotsamantha]

Many different woe will work in different ways for different people. Unfortunately, many otherwise competent people tend to freak out when they see "ketosis" because they think it's the same as ketoacidosis.

Here's a post I found from 2big:

okay so you can all correct it when you see it on the board and are told about it here is the myth of high protein diets harming kidneys.

When you read the book further you will see Dr Atkins very carefully tells us that is we have a blood creatinine leve over 2.0 we can not follow his plan unless supervised by our kidney doctor.

Some types of impaired kidney function can't filter the wastes out of the blood and one of the waste products is nitrogen from protein metabolism you will see it as BUN in your lab results another is creatinine, waste product made from the metabolism of creatine which is produced in a steady state in the body.
And proteinuria the presence of protein in the urine itself can signal kidney damage.
Since they can't filter this stuff out and it will build up to toxic levels those kidney patients are put on a very low protein diet with just enough protein for cellular repairs and no more.
So some folk erroneously extrapolated that high amounts of protein must harm kidneys since those with harmed kidneys have protein damages from those high levels of BUN and creatinine in the blood.

There was actually a doctor at a very prestigious medical center that set out to prove once and for all the high protein diets like Atkins ( his words not mine) harmed kidneys. Well he actually had to admit that they didn't do any harm in folks with normal kidney function! His study was on the WebMD site and published in one of the national journals

[2big4mysize]

LOL can't decide whether to tell you to act surprized and ask MIL for some scientific studies to demonstrate this to you and then sit back and watch her never find one or explain it medically so you can tell her how wrong she is. okay I'll just let you decide how best to deal with her but the correct answer is the myth of excess protein causes kidney damage is from bad conclusions based on science.
people who already have kidney damage can make it worse by eating too much protein and for then the proitein limit is very very small. soo fok extrapolated from that that high protein diets will damage kidneys and spread that myth like crazy.

the study back in 2002 published in March 2003 inAnnals of Internal Medicine http://www.annals.org/cgi/search?pu...e&sendit=Search
it was done at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston using an ongoing 11 yr Nurses' Health Study and proved beyond a shawdow of a doubt ( it was done by a doc sure too much protein like Atkins diets was harmful to kidneys so you know it is through and correct when it declared it) that was not true.

if a person has preexisting kidney damage then yes a high protein diet will cause damage was again shown in this study but it alsio showed that if they had no preexisaitng damage nor condition then no amount of protein caused damage.

[changing]

A little off-topic, but I saw the subject line, and thought "livers maybe, but I don't know if I'd eat kidneys..."

I'm going to school to work in allied healthcare right now. Most of my classes are things like Medical Terminology, Anatomy and Physiology, Disease Processes, and Pharmacology. The more I learn about the body's physiology and metabolic mechanisms (including macronutrient digestion -- i.e. the breaking down of carbohydrate, proteins, and lipids), the less I believe that the kidneys are at risk from what I'm eating. It just seems sillier and sillier.

I'm no expert and certainly not a doctor, but heck, there are many other ways that you can actually damage your kidneys that never get any press. For example, the presence of streptococci bacteria in the body (from something like a strep throat) can trigger the formation of immune complexes in the kidney (because of an allergic type III hypersensitivity reaction) that causes inflammation and tissue destruction in the kidney that results in a condition called glomerulonephritis in which the kindey will not filter properly and renal failure results. Sometimes other bacteria can do this as well, bacteria that is causing no symptoms at all in its host and a person will end up with kidney infections and problems. Though patients who already have kidney disease/infections are advised not to eat much for protein because their filtration mechanisms are either temporarily out of commission or totally kaput and we cannot filter protein well without a properly functioning kidney, kidney disease is not directly caused by protein intake. Other factors have to be in play, according to current research.

The kidney thing is just overblown, in my opinion.

One thing is for certain, though: if you want your kidney function to be optimal, drink plenty of water to take it easy on the old kidneys!!!

[MommaGlass]

Originally Posted by changing

A little off-topic, but I saw the subject line, and thought "livers maybe, but I don't know if I'd eat kidneys..."

ROFL!!!!
Not to threadjack, I ate kidneys in England. It was in a Mixed Grill I ordered. It was little bits of pork chop, steak, chicken, kidney, blood sausage and chips. I had a mega Guinness Hang-over so I don't really remember what the taste was like.

[BeccaResRN]

Well I am also an RN and I am all for Atkins...this WOL does not cause kidney damage, obviously if you are in renal failure and undergoing dialysis and are on a protein restricted diet ordered by you MD then by all mean ATkins would not be smart for that person.

Oh and there are NO studies that show that a high protein diet causes renal impairment...so MIL would be unable to produce any such documents...Oh and Atkins is a high fat diet not really high protein anyway

Hey its your life...why when we want to do something to help us lose weight everyone has advice...what?? like it was healthy to eat the way we were...???