Can I Drink Alcohol with Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD)

Proper dietary and nursing care play an important role for management of Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) and slowing down progression of the illness condition. Drinking alcohol is what many people like, well then, when diagnosed as PKD, should people continue to drink alcohol?

People with Polycystic Kidney Disease are suggested to stop drinking alcohol. Alcohol can do harm to the health in PKD people in various ways. As we have known, PKD is an inborn kidney disorder characterized by clusters of cysts existing in the kidneys. The enlarging kidney cysts can oppress surrounding renal tissues, cause renal ischemia, elevate blood pressure and damage the kidneys. Management of high blood pressure is a tough job for PKD because hypertension worsens damage on the kidneys. Drinking alcohol can raise people’s blood pressure thus making BP difficult to be controlled.

Alcohol itself can harm the kidneys. It can disturb organic urea balance and promote protein decomposition thus producing more urea nitrogen. The excess urea nitrogen will make the kidneys work harder. As alcohol is decomposed, it can produce some acidic substances and cause metabolic acidosis, symptoms of which include nausea, vomiting, poor appetite, headache, etc. In advanced stages of PKD, the kidneys don’t produce a kind of hormone that promote production of red blood cells-erythropoietin properly, so people have anemia. Regularly drinking alcohol can worsen anemia state, cause platelet dysfunction or hemorrhage.

In addition, alcohol also leads to gastrointestinal tract malabsorption and reduces utilization of vitamin B1, B2 and folic acids, thus worsening the nutrition status. Considering all the bad effects of alcohol, people with PKD need to quit it for their own health.