Should I Limit Salt Intake with Polycystic Kidney Disease

Salt is the essential seasoning in our daily life, but for some patients, due to their illness, they have to limit salt intake. Here we give an introduction about whether we need to limit salt intake if we are affected by Polycystic Kidney Disease and how does salt intake affect our illness condition.

Should I limit salt intake with Polycystic Kidney Disease?

Polycystic Kidney Disease is a hereditary kidney problem and it affects our life by impairing our kidney function. Polycystic Kidney Disease is marked by countless cysts in kidney. These cysts are filled with yellow fluids and enlarge with the increase of cystic fluids. We can live normally and without limiting slat intake when our kidney function is normally. However, with the increase of cysts, surrounding renal tissues will be oppressed seriously and they finally fail to function well. As more and more renal tissues are damaged by enlarged kidney cysts, kidney function decreases gradually. When kidney function is impaired due to Polycystic Kidney Disease, patients need to limit salt intake.

How does salt intake affect kidney function?

Polycystic Kidney Disease patients are suggested to limit salt intake because salt is high in sodium. In normal cases, sodium in the blood is kept in a stable range. When we ingest too much sodium, our kidneys work hardly to excrete excessive sodium. However, once kidney function is impaired, excessive sodium can not be discharged successfully and timely. Consequently, sodium builds up in the blood and sodium level increases.

Kidneys are responsible for discharging excessive sodium, so when there is high level of sodium, healthy renal tissues have to work more hardly to excrete excessive sodium. Salt is high in sodium, so eating too much salt means ingesting too much sodium. For people with Polycystic Kidney Disease, if they eat too much salt, their renal burden will be increased greatly, which may worsen kidney function. Therefore, it is necessary for PKD patients whose kidney function has been impaired to limit salt intake.

Whether people with Polycystic Kidney Disease need to limit salt intake actually depends on their illness condition. For some people, they may have PKD gene, but have health kidney function. In this case, there is no necessary to limit salt intake. However, once kidney function is affected, PKD patients need to limit salt intake to protect residual kidney function.