What Can I Do to Keep My Kidneys Healthy? - LifeCare

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What Can I Do to Keep My Kidneys Healthy?

Life Care Diagnostic

February 22, 2021

Here’re some ways to prevent kidney disease through dietary and lifestyle tweaks.

Protect your kidneys by preventing or managing health conditions that cause kidney damage, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.

Maintaining a body mass index (BMI) of 18.5-22.9kg/m2 can reduce your risk of getting obesity-related chronic diseases including kidney failure.

Make physical activity part of your routine – at least 150 minutes of physical activity per week

Stop smoking!
- Smoking slows the blood flow to important organs like the kidneys and can make kidney disease worse.

Limit alcohol intake
- If you drink alcohol, limit yourself to one drink per day if you are a woman and two drinks per day if you are a man. One drink is:

Get screened!
- Blood test that checks how well your kidneys are filtering your blood, called Glomerular Filtration Rate (eGFR).
- Urine test to check for albumin. Albumin is a protein that can pass into the urine when the kidneys are damaged.

Healthy eating includes a diet that has:
- Low in sodium (salt) American Heart Association recommends no more than 2,300 milligrams (mg) a day and moving toward an ideal limit of no more than 1,500 mg per day for most adults.
- Low in fat especially saturated fat
- Low in dietary cholesterol such as fried foods and fast foods
- Minimize trans fat
- High in dietary fiber and whole grains

Tips of eating out

Remove the poultry’s skin and fat before eating.
Ask for less oil, less salt and less gravy in your food.
Replace fried noodles with soup noodles.
Ask for healthier drinks like “kosong” or take plain water instead of sweet drinks
Reduce frequency of fast food consumption.
Do not add extra cheese to your pizza or spaghetti.
Ask for brown rice instead of white rice or flavoured rice
Share your meal if the food portion is large.

Tips when you have home cooking

Reduce the amount of salt and seasoning used.
Use low fat cooking methods like steaming, boiling, stewing, grilling, baking, stir-fried with less oil.
Enhance the flavour of food by using herbs, spices, lemon juice or vinegar instead of salt, seasoning, butter, margarine, lard and shortening.
Use brown rice or wholemeal noodle.
Remove poultry’s skin and trim off the visible fat before cooking.

KKLIU 1600/2021