Avoiding Dialysis Through Management of Diet
“How to avoid dialysis” by Dr. Mackenzie Walser, suggests that the need for dialysis in kidney patients can be delayed with carefully controlled dietary treatment.
Among Dr. Walser’s patients were those with Nephrotic Syndrome, Polycystic Kidney Disease, Hypertensive Kidney Disease, and Diseases of the Glomeruli. For those with nephrotic syndrome, treatment with a very low protein diet supplemented by essential amino acids (and in certain cases, a low- salt diet) delayed the need for dialysis for two to twelve years, and, in one case, permanently, as the patient’s kidney disease disappeared. The same regimen was successful with patients with polycystic kidney disease; renal failure was slowed and the need for dialysis delayed, in one case indefinitely.
Patients with Hypertensive Kidney Disease were able to delay dialysis for approximately four years using the low-protein diet; those diagnosed with diseases of the Glomeruli had a similar success rate, postponing dialysis by two to five years.
Dr. Walser says that before putting any patient on dialysis, doctors have an obligation to tell the patient that there is an alternative available, namely dietary treatment including close follow-up to watch for the other conditions that could endanger a patient failing kidneys.