Nutritional/Programming Considerations for Kidney Donor

Medical Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello -

I donated a kidney 4 years ago. Perhaps my Google-fu is weak, but I have not found any good information on any special dietary or exercise considerations for kidney donors. A nutritionist at the hospital warned me against protein shakes, because (according to him) patients don’t drink enough water with them and they don’t work anyway (the body can’t absorb that much protein). That smelled bullshitty to me at the time, and I think my skepticism has been vindicated. Similarly, there are plenty of kidney donor websites that will warn against high protein diets, but as far as I can tell these are not supported by any actual studies, just the usual protein paranoia.

My understanding is that all of the protein-is-bad-for kidneys claims are based on papers showing that excess protein can exacerbate problems in already compromised kidneys. On the one hand, my kidney is healthy. On the other hand, there is only one of them, so maybe the “diseased kidney” is the appropriate model for my situation. The only study I did find is a case study of a young adult with one kidney who went on a high protein diet and also supplemented with creatine, and they found no adverse impact on his kidney function. Still, that’s an N of 1, and my wife is not thrilled with the idea of me experimenting on my remaining kidney.

But wife notwithstanding, my plan has been not be afraid of a “high” protein diet (i.e., ~35-40% of calories from protein), and just to keep an eye on my numbers. Speaking of which, I’m 40, 6’1, and about 190 lbs. My creatinine was about 1.1 before donation, and has stabilized to about 1.5. My most recent creatinine was 1.6. That was after about 6 months on the SSLP (though with some modifications due to injuries old and new) and one month of supplementing with 5g of creatine daily. So, so far so good.

As for training, the only conceivable complication i could think of would be that the temporary spike in blood pressure during exertion would be too much for the one kidney. But I’m not a doctor, so I was wondering what you guys thought.

Thanks!

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I would put you at 180g of protein per day and go from there. Excess protein really ought to be defined, but I don’t think it has a meaningful definition (that’s not arbitrary).

There are homeostatic changes that occur at the level of the nephron in the kidney when protein intake increases, but this is not injurious. I talked about this with Rip on a podcast at some point, but I forgot which one.