Brief Summary
Dr. Ken Berry discusses how to protect kidney function by identifying factors that harm kidneys and debunking common misconceptions. He emphasizes the importance of managing blood sugar, insulin levels, and blood pressure through diet. He also addresses the impact of anti-inflammatories, tobacco, alcohol, and high-oxalate diets on kidney health. Additionally, he refutes the myths about protein, saturated fat, keto/carnivore diets, caffeine, and salt intake, providing evidence-based insights for kidney health.
- High blood sugar and insulin levels, high blood pressure, anti-inflammatories, smoking, alcohol, and high-oxalate diets can harm kidney function.
- Common beliefs about protein, saturated fat, keto/carnivore diets, caffeine, and salt intake being harmful to kidneys are largely unsupported by evidence.
Dr. Berry introduces the importance of kidney function and addresses common misinformation that can lead to harmful practices. He aims to educate viewers on factors that destroy kidney function and debunk prevalent myths perpetuated by doctors. He highlights the kidney's role beyond just filtering blood and emphasizes the negative impacts of suboptimal kidney function on overall health.
The primary factor that damages kidney function is chronically high blood sugar, stemming from pre-diabetes, type 2 diabetes, or uncontrolled type 1 diabetes. Elevated blood sugar destroys nephrons, the functional units of the kidneys, leading to chronic kidney disease. This advice is also applicable to individuals with polycystic kidney disease. Lowering carbohydrate intake through diet is crucial to maintaining normal blood sugar levels and protecting kidney function.
Chronically high insulin levels, or hyperinsulinemia, also damage the kidneys. This condition often results from high-carbohydrate diets and the use of medications that lower blood sugar by increasing insulin production. Reducing carbohydrate intake helps lower blood sugar, reducing the need for excessive insulin production by the pancreas or through medication.
Uncontrolled high blood pressure is another significant factor in kidney damage. Essential hypertension is often caused by chronic hyperinsulinemia, which leads to fluid retention and edema. Lowering carbohydrate intake reduces blood sugar and insulin levels, which helps the body release excess fluid and normalize blood pressure.
Daily use of anti-inflammatory medications, both over-the-counter and prescription, can harm the kidneys over time. While occasional use for acute injuries is acceptable, prolonged daily use can lead to kidney damage.
Using tobacco in any form creates inflammatory molecules that negatively affect kidney function. It is advised to gradually reduce and eventually stop tobacco use to protect kidney health.
Continuous, excessive alcohol consumption can damage kidney function. Occasional drinking is not as harmful, but daily alcohol abuse should be reduced to protect the kidneys.
A diet high in oxalates can lead to kidney stone formation, particularly calcium oxalate stones. While many doctors focus on calcium, reducing oxalate intake is crucial, especially for those with a history of kidney stones. Large kidney stones can obstruct the ureter, causing back pressure and damaging kidney function.
Dr. Berry addresses five common misconceptions doctors often tell patients regarding kidney health, which are not supported by scientific evidence.
The idea that eating too much protein, especially animal protein, harms the kidneys is a myth. Research indicates that consuming healthy animal protein does not negatively affect kidney function. While excessive intake of highly concentrated protein shakes could potentially cause harm, obtaining protein from natural animal sources is not detrimental.
The claim that saturated fat is harmful to the kidneys is not supported by research. There is no evidence to suggest that a diet high in healthy saturated fats from sources like coconut oil or animal foods damages the kidneys.
The belief that ketogenic or carnivore diets are bad for the kidneys is unfounded. There is no controlled research to prove or suggest that these diets are harmful. Doctors who advise against these diets may lack a fundamental understanding of renal physiology and are influenced by popular myths.
Limiting caffeine to protect the kidneys is another unsupported claim. Decades of research have failed to show that reasonable caffeine consumption, such as one to four cups of coffee a day, harms kidney function.
The recommendation to lower salt intake to protect the kidneys lacks physiological and ancestral support. There is no research indicating that an adequate salt diet, where food is salted to taste, harms the kidneys. Human beings have historically sought out sources of sodium, and taste should guide salt consumption.
Dr. Berry advises viewers to avoid the seven harmful factors discussed earlier and disregard the five unsupported claims. He shares testimonials of people with chronic kidney disease who improved their kidney function through keto or carnivore diets. He encourages viewers to explore resources on keto and carnivore diets for further information.
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Transcript
Full transcript of “7 Things that Damage Kidneys (and 5 Big Fat Lies) -2024”. Click a timestamp to open the video at that moment. Need another video? Use the YouTube transcript generator.
0:00 having good kidney function is mandatory to live your optimal life but there's a lot of misinformation out there that if you listen to it can lead you to avoiding things that don't really protect your kidney function or to ignoring things that really affect your kidney function negatively i'm dr ken berry a family physician with over 20 years of experience of helping people protect their kidneys let's talk about seven things that will destroy your kidney function and then five big fat lies that doctors tell patients every day that don't protect their kidney function in any way the most important thing you have to understand about your kidneys is that
0:45 they they have a filtering role they filter your blood that is indeed one of the things they do but they do many other things as well uh having sub optimal kidney function can really affect your life in a negative way so let's go through the list of things that will destroy your kidneys and then at the end of this video i'm going to tell you five big fat lies doctors tell patients every day i don't think it's uh them trying to be deceptive i just don't think they know better yet but with your help we can help educate every doctor in the world about what actually destroys kidney function and what helps preserve it so the number one thing that will destroy your kidney function is high blood sugar pre-diabetes type 2 diabetes or uncontrolled type 1 diabetes when you
1:33 run a chronically high blood sugar every day you are destroying your nephrons that's the little individual cell packets in your kidneys that do all the work and when you've destroyed enough of these nephrons you're going to be diagnosed with something called chronic kidney disease now everything i'm going to talk about in this video also applies to someone with polycystic kidney disease as well so if you have that then this video everything i say in this video applies to you as well so the number one thing you can do to protect your kidney function is to get your blood sugar back down to normal you do this by eating a very very low carbohydrate diet that's going to keep you from having the blood sugar spikes even if you're a type 1 diabetic
2:18 number two on the list of things that destroy your kidneys is chronically high insulin levels so if you're eating a high carbohydrate diet and then you've been diagnosed with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes and you're taking one of the type 2 diabetes medications that lowers your blood sugar that medicine actually works by raising your insulin the problem is is there's tons of research out there that shows that chronically high levels of insulin aka hyperinsulinemia also damages your kidneys as well so again the way to fix this is to lower the amount of carbohydrates you eat in your diet each and every day this is going to keep your blood sugar lower therefore your pancreas won't make extra
3:04 insulin and you won't have to inject extra insulin or take a pill that makes your pancreas secrete too much insulin number three thing that will destroy your kidneys is uncontrolled high blood pressure most people think this is from eating too much salt or it's genetic or blah blah blah truth of the matter is is that 80 to 90 of essential hypertension in the world is caused by chronic hyperinsulinemia which cause causes an inordinate amount of fluid to be held in the body in an unhealthy manner this is called edema and once you lower your carbohydrate intake which lowers your blood sugar therefore lowers your insulin all of a sudden you're able to
3:49 dye your wrist away all this extra unhealthy fluid that you're holding and your blood pressure will come back down either to normal or very close to normal the number four thing that will destroy kidney function is taking anti-inflammatories on a daily basis now these can be over-the-counter anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen or naproxen this can also be prescription anti-inflammatories like celebrities or any of the other anti-inflammatories taking these on a daily basis is very very hard on your kidneys and over the years will cause some degree of kidney damage now caveat it's fine to take an anti-inflammatory occasionally if you strain your back or twist an ankle or
4:36 something like that you can take an anti-inflammatory for a few days that's how they're intended to be used but many doctors allow their patients to take anti-inflammatories for days and days and months and months and years and years and this is going to destroy your kidneys the next thing on the list of things that destroys kidney function is smoking tobacco or chewing the tobacco or dipping tobacco tobacco in any form is going to create inflammatory molecules that wreak havoc on your kidney function if you use any form of tobacco please wean that down and stop that the next thing on the list that will destroy your kidney function is drinking too much alcohol on a continuous basis so if you have a
5:23 birthday and you drink two beers and then you don't touch a beer again for months that's not a big deal right in the big picture that's not that bad but daily alcohol abuse or overuse or especially abuse is going to harm your kidney function if you're currently drinking alcohol on a daily basis i would highly advise you wean that down so that you're having an alcoholic drink on occasion but not on a daily basis and then number seven on this list of things that will destroy your kidney function is eating or drinking a high oxalate diet so there are a long list of vegetables that are very very high in oxalates some are so high in oxalates that if you eat them without
6:08 cooking them thoroughly they can actually give you an acute oxalate reaction some have lower levels of oxalate but still too many the most common kidney stone that plagues mankind is the calcium oxalate stone now a lot of doctors like to focus on the calcium part of that but i contend that we need to be lowering the oxalate intake especially in someone who's had a previous kidney stone the way kidney stones can damage and destroy your kidney function is if you have a stone large enough that completely occludes your ureter then you can have back pressure on that kidney and kidneys don't like back pressure too much of that for too long a period of time will destroy your kidney function
6:55 now let's talk about the five things that doctors very commonly counsel patients to avoid and imply that this will protect your kidney function that somehow these five things are bad for your kidneys and in every single case there's either not a shred of evidence to support that or or there's copious amounts of evidence that refutes that okay first and foremost is that eating too much protein especially animal protein is hard on your kidneys or will harm your kidneys or cause kidney damage not only is this there's not a shred of evidence to support this there are multiple research studies that show that people have who have eaten lots of healthy animal protein over their entire life
7:40 it doesn't affect their kidney function in any negative way this is a myth out there some people would call this a big fat lie you can eat as much animal protein as you want and you're never going to harm your kidney function now if you're gorging on protein shakes that have highly concentrated pulverized protein in them then potentially you could ingest too much protein and harm your kidneys but getting protein from animal based sources basically the place where humans have gotten protein for the last two and a half million years at least that's not going to harm your kidneys it just doesn't even make good sense number two is oh you're getting too much saturated fat cut down on saturated fat
8:26 to protect your kidneys it's a very common thing doctors tell patients the next time your doctor tells you this i want you to say to your doctor very politely and respectfully doctor could you please print off the research study that proves this and then listen to the crickets chirp as your doctor is unable to come up with any research whatsoever this is an opinion this is a fad belief in medical community right now there's no research whatsoever that that shows in any way that eating a diet high in healthy saturated fat coming either from coconut oil or from animal foods that are rich in healthy saturated fat these are not going to harm your kidneys that is a big fat lie number three is that oh don't eat keto or carnivore that's that's bad for your
9:11 kidneys and i think most of this comes from the high amounts of animal protein and healthy saturated fat that are in a ketogenic diet or a carnivore diet but also i think there's a second layer of healthcare providers who just believe that magically keto is bad for your kidneys or magically a carnivore diet is bad for your kidneys there's not a shred of of controlled research that proves this or even suggests that this is true if your doctor says keto will hurt your kidneys or carnivore will hurt your kidneys you need to start looking for a new doctor because it shows you that they do not understand the basic physiology of renal function and that they are very susceptible to buying into and believing myths and fads
9:57 that are currently popular not a good look for a doctor number four is that you need to limit caffeine because caffeine is bad for your kidneys once again doctors have been trying to prove for decades that caffeine is bad for any part of your body and there's not a shred of research evidence that shows that drinking a reasonable amount of caffeine a day one two three maybe four cups of coffee there is zero research that shows that that will harm your kidneys or your kidney function it's just not true and then number five is a biggie many many nephrologists and internal medicine docs and family docs will tell patients you've gotta lower your salt intake to protect your kidneys again this doesn't
10:43 even make good physiological sense when you add in the fact that ancestrally human beings have been seeking out sources of sodium of salt in their diet for hundreds of thousands of years it doesn't make any sense on an ancestral basis then when you look at the research of this there's literally no research that shows that eating an adequate salt diet is going to harm your kidneys in any way and what i mean by adequate salt diet is that you salt your food to taste let your taste buds be your guide if you're eating food that is salty enough to to make your taste buds happy that's not a sin you're not a glutton you're not a loser that's what mammals are supposed to do now if you've already
11:29 had some degree of kidney damage due to previous insults bad diet smoking alcohol whatever then i encourage you to check out one of the two playlists in the show notes down below there's keto 101 and carnivore 101. we have had hundreds if not thousands of people now reach out to us and say hey i had stage one ckd stage two stage three even stage four and when i uh gave keto a try or gave a carnivore diet a try after 90 days of keto or carnivore or 180 days of keto carnivore my kidney function actually improved my doctor was blown away couldn't explain it and my doctor basically said well i don't care if your kidney function got better keto still will kill your kidneys
12:16 so please please i implore you avoid the seven things that i talk about at the beginning of this video and completely ignore the final five things that i covered in this video hope this helps you a lot here's to your kidneys and long-term kidney health this is dr barry i'll see you next time
