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Writer's pictureArwen Rasmussen

Diet and Hydration for Kidney Health





When’s the last time you thought about your kidneys? If you’re like most people, your kidneys are working hard in the background, and you don’t really think about their health until they start to struggle.


Fortunately, there are easy steps you can take to maintain kidney health for years to come.


Kidneys serve an important role cleaning the blood, filtering waste and removing extra liquid from your body. Regular tests ordered by your primary care doctor help monitor your kidney function and let you know when kidney problems occur. 


“I tell my patients your kidneys are like an engine,” says Dr. Sumaira Shaikh, a nephrologist with the Mercyhealth Kidney Care and Dialysis Center in Janesville. “When it’s nice and new you can do whatever you want. When it gets older, if you don’t change the oil on time and don’t put fuel in, it dies out sooner. Treat yourself as you’d treat a good vehicle and try to keep up with the maintenance. A good diet is really the maintenance for your kidneys.”

Dr. Shaikh recommends her patients closely follow a Mediterranean diet, which reduces the intake of salt, red meat and processed foods.


“I have several patients who I have seen for ten years now,” she says. “When they were referred to me, they were on track for dialysis in the near future. Their trajectory was such that every time we checked their kidney function it was progressively worse.”


Those patients followed Dr. Shaikh’s diet and exercise recommendations, cutting back on processed foods and increasing their daily water intake.

Without the lifestyle change, they would have been on dialysis five years ago, she says. They still have not gone on dialysis.


“The whole goal is that if your kidney is already in a state where we are worried about it, we don’t want to overload it with extra work. When you eat better, you’re not putting in stuff that increases the work of the kidney. Salt increases the work of the kidney. Processed food increases the work of the kidney. Trying to eat more vegetables and fruits helps you offload the work of the kidney.”

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Mercyhealth is celebrating 25 years of exceptional kidney care and one year in the Mercyhealth Kidney Care and Dialysis Center.


To learn more, visit mercyhealthsystem.org/nephrology or call    (888) 39-MERCY.

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