Grant: Project Grant

Do you eat bananas? Stop! This is probably not something you would expect to hear a health care provider say, however if you are an adult living with kidney disease, you might. This proposal is about answering this simple question: if you are a kidney patient, should you eat bananas or donuts? The question was posed by a patient to their registered dietitian (RD; our knowledge user) after receiving counselling on how to follow a low potassium diet. That is because all of these foods are high in potassium. The kidneys help remove extra potassium from the body and helps keep the right amount of potassium circulating in the blood. When kidneys are not working properly, there is a risk of too much potassium building up in the blood. Too much potassium in the blood can impact how well muscles work and the most important muscle in the body is the heart. This is why it is recommended to avoid eating too much potassium if you are an adult living with kidney disease. Many fruits and vegetables are high in potassium. The tricky part is that potassium can also be added to processed foods in the form of food additives, however, because this is relatively new, we do not have a good understanding of whether or not these additives might cause too much potassium to build up in the blood. Moreover, when potassium is found in a whole fruit or vegetable, a part of the plant known as the cell wall, may prevent much of the potassium in the fruit or vegetable from being absorbed hence preventing excessive increase in serum potassium. Our study hopes to achieve two things. First we want to understand how food processing and potassium additives change the potassium content of foods. Second, we want to study if different types of foods impact the potassium in the blood in the same way. Our hope is that if we can better understand how potassium from different foods behaves in the body, we will be able to give better nutritional advice to adults living with kidney disease.