Diabetic Nephropathy is a common chronic complication of Diabetes. According
to some researches, about 10~53% of the patients with more than 10 years’
Diabetes history are complicated with Kidney Disease and also the incidence of
Kidney Disease increases with the prolonging of disease course. At present,
Diabetic Nephropathy has become the number one cause of Renal Failure, which
brings many sufferings to the patients. As Diabetic Nephropathy is a complicated
disease, the arrangement of the nutrient supplements is a hard job. They not
only need to guarantee sufficient supplement of calorie, but also limit the
intake of carbohydrate, fat and protein. Here are some diet suggestions for the
patients with Diabetic Nephropathy.
1. Protein: Long term protein intake can aggravate the high filtration of
glomeruli and increases the metabolic products of protein in body thus
aggravating the kidney damage. Therefore, we should limit the protein intake
properly so as to decrease the kidney damage. Generally speaking, the patients
with Diabetic Nephropathy should keep their protein intake within 0.6~0.8 grams/
kg per body weight and also need to increase the high quality protein intake in
the whole protein intake. If the patients with Diabetes develop Renal Failure,
they should have a more strict limitation in the protein intake.
2. Essential amino acids: The patients with Diabetic Nephropathy should keep
high intake of essential amino acids.
3. Calorie: As the patients with Diabetic Nephropathy have a strict
limitation of protein intake, they should guarantee sufficient calorie
supplement so as to meet normal physiological need. They should choose some food
with high calorie, but low protein.
4. Fat: The patients with Diabetic Nephropathy usually have dyslipidoses.
Therefore, the patients should keep a low-fat diet.
5. Sodium: For the patients with Diabetic Nephropathy, they usually have high
blood pressure, edema or decreased urine output. Limiting sodium intake can
prevent the complications’ progression. However, if the patients are complicated
with vomit, diarrhea, they should not limit their sodium intake strictly any
longer. In this condition, many patients may need to replenish sodium.
6. Water: It is very important to control the balance of water in body. If
Diabetic Nephropathy develops into End Stage Renal Failure, the patients often
have decreased urine output volume and even have no urine. At that moment, the
patients should be particularly cautious in water intake. If the take too much
water, it will increase much burden to their kidneys. Therefore, they should
take 500 ml more fluid than the urine output of the previous day. However, if
the patients are complicated with high fever, vomit and other symptoms, they
should have more fluid supplement.
The above article has introduced the general diet principles for the patients
with Diabetic Nephropathy. However, the disease conditions vary with different
patients. Therefore, the patients had better go to consult their dietitian and
make a detailed diet plan based on their own disease condition and dietary
habits.