Post: Healthier Ways to Eat With Rare Kidney Disease

Tailoring your diet to lessen kidney strain with IgA neuropathy can be tricky. Start with this expert advice.

Part of Demystifying Rare Kidney Disease

Nov 5, 2024 GettyImages/alvarez Jump To Anti-Inflammatory Diet

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Receiving a diagnosis of a rare kidney disease like immunoglobin A nephropathy (IgAN), can be a lot to process. Thoughts of what your new normal will be like and what aspects of life are still in your control are understandably common.

“Diet and lifestyle changes are first and foremost. They are not emphasized enough in my opinion,” says Anjay Rastogi, M.D., Ph.D. , a professor and the clinical chief of nephrology at UCLA Health in Los Angeles.IgA nephropathy happens when clumps (or complexes) of abnormal antibodies build up in the kidneys and cause damage to the organ’s small filters that flush out fluid and waste. The first thing doctors urge patients to do after a diagnosis is to increase their physical activity and adjust their diet, which can lead them to quite a long list of foods, ingredients, and minerals to avoid.Here, we went to dietitians who specialize in working with people managing rare kidney disease to get their expert advice for eating right for IgAN.Anti-Inflammatory Diet Adopt an Anti-Inflammatory Diet It can be tough to follow all the eat-this-not-that guidance you might find out there with rare kidney disease. But the advice is shifting to a more holistic approach, say our experts. “Now the research is emerging that it’s more important to focus on the overall quality of the diet and whole eating patterns, rather than only individual ingredients,” says dietitian Sara Prato, R.D.N. , a specialist in renal nutrition based in Colorado Springs, CO, and founder of the CKD Dietitian.Unlike chronic kidney diseases that might arise due to diabetes or high blood pressure , IgaN is an autoimmune disease that increases inflammation . So the first recommendation that Prato usually gives to the newly-diagnosed is to shift to an anti-inflammatory style of eating like the Mediterranean diet .“It’s well-known and supported by research for its abilities […]

Healthier Ways to Eat With Rare Kidney Disease