How Does Diet Affect Creatinine in CKD

Creatinine is kept in the normal range through kidney, so CKD patients always experience high creatinine level. Almost every CKD patient know diet changes are necessary when creatinine level increases out of the normal range, but few of them know how diet affect creatinine in CKD and what foods they can eat and can not eat.

How does diet affect creatinine in CKD?

For an individual with CKD, creatinine level is affected by diet through different ways:

1. Creatinine is a chemical waste molecule that is produced when muscle and meat we eat is metabolized in the body. Therefore, eating lots of meat will cause high generation of creatinine and thus lead to further rise of creatinine level.

2. Normally, excess creatinine is discharged by kidneys, so when kidney function is affected by CKD, excessive creatinine will build up in blood, leading to increase of creatinine level. For this reason, a well-planed diet that can help to protect residual kidney function is necessary.

Foods to eat and avoided with high creatinine level due to CKD

Exact food lists for CKD patients vary from case to case, but usually they need to follow low-salt diet, low-protein diet, low-potassium level and low-phosphorus diet.

Low-salt diet: Kidney helps to keep normal sodium level and when kidney function is impaired, sodium level in blood increases. Under such a condition, eating less salt will be necessary as salt is rich in sodium. Besides, foods high in sodium like canned foods, salad dressings, bacon, sun dried tomatoes, cheese, snack foods and pickled foods and so on needed to be limited or even avoided.

Low-protein diet: protein is the necessary material of a healthy body, but for CKD patients, high protein intake will worsen kidney condition and elevates creatinine level. From this point of view, limiting protein intake will be necessary. In daily diet, CKD patients can eat some high quality protein like fish, lean meat, egg white and milk.

Low-potassium diet: Common source of potassium in our daily life include banana, carrot, baked potato, raisins, spinach, winter squash, salmon and cooked lean beef and so on. To avoid, at least reduce the threat of high potassium, avoiding high potassium foods will be necessary.

Low-phosphorus level: Phosphorus aids in the development of bones and teeth, but for CKD patients, they are more likely to develop high phosphorus level. In view of this, they must limit foods high in phosphorus in daily diet, so as to avoid unnecessary problems.

Diet is just one of the factors that can affect creatinine level and for CKD patients, the root cause of elevated creatinine level is decreased kidney function and if they want to control their serum creatinine level into the normal range, improving kidney condition is essential.