Is It True That Chronic Kidney Disease Will Affect More Than Half Of Us?

Chronic Kidney Disease

um I’d like to start out by asking you um our panel tonight is on the top diseases and we have spoken about some but there are some things that we don’t talk about that much in public and I was wondering if each of you would just share if you have any thoughts on what the research shows regarding these conditions

so let me read you a Washington Post article it says the head line in the article it says half of adults will get chronic kidney disease model predicts and I read mentioning this because cancer heart disease and diabetes are the topics that are often talked about um chronic kidney disease to someone like me is not really on the radar

and so I was wondering if you could comment it just read you the first paragraph it says a new model predicts that about half of all people aged 30 and older in the United States will develop chronic kidney disease during their lifetime a surprisingly large proportion for a condition that is not on the radar screens of many Americans

writing in the American Journal of kidney diseases Monday a team of researchers concluded that 54% of people the ages of 30 I’m sorry of people between the ages of 30 and 49 will develop the disease the figure is 52% for people between the ages of 50 and 64 and 42% for those 65 and older

this compares to Lifetime incidences of 12 1.5% for breast cancer for women 30 to 38% for diabetes and 90% for hypertension in middle-aged men and women the researchers wrote in 2020 14.4% of all people 30 or older will have chronic kidney disease up from 13.2% today in 2030 the proportion will rise to 16.7% the researchers say it’s a high number and certainly the organizations that focus on kidney disease are trying to raise awareness of that number

with next time I’ll suggest we start with you um well you heard earlier in the day

Case Study

the case study that Hans deal presented uh which was actually one of my patients and this illustrates uh one of the issues around kidney disease that uh perhaps is relevant to this conference this woman who had 16 different conditions or diseases uh saw all 16 of them reverse during the two or three years that she was under my care and under the care of the uh lifestyle change program called the chip program

uh she was on the kidney dialysis waiting list uh and her doctor told her that she would need dialysis it was just a matter of time we changed her diet to A Whole Foods plant-based diet uh the protein that she was eating was less than the total she had been used to eating and it was plant-based rather than animal-based and that’s easier on the kidneys

and her uh creatinine uh one of the measures of pork kidney function drop from uh 2.8 to to 1.5 or 1.0 and uh so she was able to reverse that condition and as a gastron neurologist I was taking care of her GI problems in a way that would improve overall health

and that for me uh underscores one of the sayings two of the sayings that I like one is that uh intelligent self-care is the new primary care because her doctor her nephologist told her that he was not interested in seeing her lab results from this lifestyle change program because he would not be a part of her false hope uh that she would get kidney disease and he just wouldn’t be a part of it

and um and the second thing is the saying that you treat one you treat them all with the chronic diseases that Americans are facing when you make a therapeutic lifestyle change uh all these conditions begin to improve uh simultaneously

so not being a nephologist not owning a kidney dialysis center not owning stock in the kidney dialysis center machine maker company uh I can’t tell you any more about it but what I love is the fact that if I just do what’s right for the patient that’s one of the conditions that improves

Vascular System

I think that we have to realize that you know diseases of the vascular system uh it’s it’s all the same it’s whether it happens in the brain or the heart or the kidneys a bad diet destroys our blood vessels to all of these vital organs

and uh you know a couple of interesting things number one is that the VST health study showed that vegetarians and vegans have I think it was either 50 or 52% less uh kidney disease and uh then healthc conscious nonvegetarians so this is really important stuff

and I concur I have seen I had recently um a client who had uh well he had type 2 diabetes was UN 40 units of insulin and 17 medications he was in early stage renal failure uh he had peripheral artery disease a chronic gout uh he had just had a major heart attack he had um you know hypertension you name it he had it

and his kidneys were failing and his doctor told him that he had a progressive irreversible set of diseases the only thing he could do was try to prolong his life and he estimated that at most he would live 2 years

well what happened to this man was his son at 36 years of age was diagnosed with a salivary gland tumor and this son happened to be at a conference that I was speaking at and he asked me could I could I help him and of course I said I I would help him um there were no guarantees with cancer

but he we put him on a fairly High raw vegan diet very well balanced and he went into remission but the coolest part of this it the most beautiful part of this is his whole entire family adopted the diet that he was going on to support him in his journey

and his father adopted this diet thinking it would do absolutely nothing for him because he knew he had an irr verble Progressive disease that nothing would help and what ended up happening is within fairly short order within six months um to a year every single disease he had was gone

he is now on zero insulin and zero pills he has normal kidney function and and the the most wonderful the most wonderful part of this is is he was you know in his 70s he said I used to spend my days being in pain and taking insulin taking pills being dizzy feeling sick and knowing I’m going to die

now I don’t know what to do with all my time I spend 2 hours a day at the gym he said I feel like I’m 25 years old and he went to his physician and he said to his physician why did you not tell me that this was possible and his physician said because I did not know it was possible uh and he said I do now

and so that really is the power that we have as individuals this system is not going to change until we as consumers demand it changes thank you that’s very good

um I guess it’s my turn to comment I I just wanted to make the point that most kidney disease isn’t like um like my other two colleagues just said they’re not inherently diseases of the kidney per se they’re there are overall ill health of the body that affects the kidney as it destroys every other part of the body

the major cause of kidney disease is high blood pressure putting pressure on the kidney atherosclerosis interfering with blood flow to the kidney um diabetes which damages the cells of the kidney through the advanced cation end products and autoimmune diseases where the immune system isn’t functioning well and it attacks the kidney through diseases like nephrosclerosis and and lupus and SC and other diseases that that affect the kidney negatively

and so the kidney is just the end organ that gets damaged when the body isn’t functioning or isn’t healthy and every one of those diseases that affects kidney function independently can be improve dramatically with by a by a by nutritional Excellence by Superior nutrition

and we’re talking here about a diet that’s rich in nutrients nutrient Rich nutrient nutritionally complete hormonally favorable and also plant Rich right mostly where where because animal protein puts a lot of pressure on the kidney and puts the kidney under stress but also is excitatory to autoimmune conditions

and one thing I wanted to mention is that and which we haven’t mentioned yet is that you know I have seen a lot of patients where where they’re diabetic um nephropathy and one of my most common referrals of Specialists to my practice were from nephrologists

don’t get a lot of referrals from cardiologists and diabetologists and endocrinologists because they feel they’re going to lose their patience but the nephrologists refer me a lot of patients especially the diabetics and they they inevitably are very excited with the results

but what’s the what’s Most Fascinating is watching people with um with autoimmune conditions with autoimmune conditions of the kidney get better where people who have kidney failure from lupus and I can up won one of those creatinine stories one of those people got well which is quite quite fascinating

a young um girl of 19 years old who was on the national renal transplant list waiting for a new kidney with lupus whose creatinine was 4.2 so I when she asked me if there was any hope for her getting well I said I don’t think so your kidney is shot but she actually got well and got and earned a cortin of8 from a corat of 4.2 which was like I couldn’t you know could believe that that could happen

but I have seen over the years people with serious autoimmune conditions including your specialty including ulst colitis make recovery people with oitis make recoveries and people with lupus and rumod arthritis and multiple sclerosis and Scleroderma and all types of autoimmune conditions of the kidney and of the liver autoimmune hepatitis as well um get well

and have the um team of doctors at the hospital always not say something as favorable or as respectful as that that that you said to you usually they say oh it’s just something that happened it was spontaneous remission it had nothing to do with the diet it couldn’t possibly have been that it’s just spontaneously remission that you just just one of these things happen one in a million cases you got well

and I said I guess I just have to be very lucky all these cases are happening in my practice not in the regular doctors but I you know I guess it’s just a matter of luck maybe it was just all luck but that true you’re a genie yeah right back in the 80s uh excuse

Diet

me oh you’re you’re hooked on that no the somehow it’s not working uh back in the 80s I awoke enough uh to start to recognize a trend with the African-American community and the hidic Jewish Community they were the first people they were the canaries in the mines with these kidney disorders

and when I looked at their diet it was quite similar you know the African-American diet is not an African diet matter of fact an African diet its authentic sense is actually a pretty healthy diet uh the hidic Jewish Community are people who were the poorest among the Jewish population in Europe and lived in ghettos and pretty much ate similarly High proteins high high high fats I mean everything is fat animal fat

and sadly it it it it bloomed it’s not just these people today that have kidney disorders as the statistics uh were just articulated by Steven if anything I think they’re conservative now besides uh a vessel disease where we were cutting blood flow off here’s my take on it and here’s exactly why animal proteins are a major culprit for this

matter of fact I actually believe if you removed animal proteins the vast majority of kidney cases other than the rare time where kidney was injured and created high blood pressure would probably be prevented there are in all animal Foods three elements that degradate all organs but certainly the kidney

now most of you don’t realize the kidney is very thin somehow when I was growing up I used to picture it being this really strong stainless steel thing that was there but it’s like paper thin and it’s mostly water and nitrogen comes from these animal-based Foods sulc acid comes from these animal-based foods and uric acid does

and you can actually eat tissue with those if we had enough of that in this glass and we put our finger in it long enough you would actually see degradation of the tissue so no wonder we’re having such a vulnerable organ go south in half the population over the next two generations just want to make sure you don’t put finger in my glass I no you know I’ll give you I’ll give you

Kidneys

mine the second thing is let’s tell the many listeners worldwide who may already have a kidney problem or know somebody a loved one or a friend that does you can’t just get on a plant-based diet the way that we would be suggesting if you have a kidney disorder because the kidney needs potassium ironically once the kidney is not functioning potassium will injure it

so you’ve got to go to the types of foods that are low potassium one example is asparagus is a great great vegetable helps the kidney and by the way has low potassium whereas if I went and I took spinach and went one step further and took massive amounts of spinach juice I could actually injure my kidney if I had a problem

so this has to be really worked uh the person enduring this problem would have to work with a conscious physician who knows what he or she’s doing and has enough experience with plant-based diets and this and of course we’ve had lots of that our medical team has had lots of that but not everyone can come to hypocrates

so search out the physician honest people like this are going to tell you I don’t know or I do know or I know somebody I can get advice from but most alternative Physicians would not know how to deal with kidneys but you said something encouraging people who work with kidneys are referring more people to you so they must be realizing the the dietary

I think they saw the results and they were impressed with the kind of results and kept sending patients but I think that my the point I was making that the interestingly def find the nephologist and the neurologists too more open to working with dietary methods and referring people where there the people you know what I mean because for some reason they’re more open than maybe the cardiologist and the endocrinologist I was just make in my experience for some reason well that’s a good sign

yeah I I think in inevitably everyone’s going to become open because if we have a failed system as we’re learning here it’s not they’re bad people and good people and we’re the good guys and they’re the bad guys it’s not that simple

uh I don’t know any doctor uh and I know lots of doctors who went into this for the wrong reason when they were 18 and decided I’m going to dedicate 12 years of educational life I assure you it was because they were affected by the death of somebody close to them they saw somebody suffer and they were intellect capable of enduring 12 years of that education

now I don’t know any doctor because I’ve talked to numbers of them that thought when they went to get educated that the entire education not the entire but a great part of the education would be involved with just writing prescriptions I thought that they literally uh most of them believed that they would be helping people counseling people they could spend a half an hour an hour with a person

unless you go into a private practice and almost have a boutique practice today you can’t spend an hour with a person I’m sure that Physicians here probably do that now but ask them when they were in practice before they were uh alternative Physicians if they could do that you just can’t and God forbid if you work in a hospital today

I know uh two people that are hospital or ex Hospital administrators one graduate at the top of her class at Yale she said that we would get on top of the doctor if he spent more than 5 minutes with the patient now you can’t say anything in 5 minutes hello goodbye and I’m sorry that’s it