Can a Ketogenic Diet Repair Damaged Kidneys?

Can a Ketogenic Diet Repair Damaged Kidneys?

Doing some research for another subject we will be talking about on this blog very soon, I cam across a very interesting paper from 2011 titled, Reversal of Diabetic Nephropathy by a Ketogenic Diet.  What the paper shows was a group of mice were given both Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes, then half the mice were switched to a ketogenic diet for 8 weeks.

After 8 weeks the mice were dissected to determine what happened and here are the results the paper showed.

Diabetic nephropathy, as indicated by albumin/creatinine ratios as well as expression of stress-induced genes, was completely reversed by 2 months maintenance on a ketogenic diet. However, histological evidence of nephropathy was only partly reversed.

What this means is that the blood markers for kidney disease were completely reversed but the actual kidneys themselves still showed evidence of the damaged caused by the poor diet, but there was still some improvement.  I would assume that staying on the ketogenic diet for longer than 8 weeks would show further improvement but no actual evidence of this was presented in this paper.

Although more research is definitely needed, especially to see just how advanced kidney damage can be until they are too far gone for even a ketogenic diet to be able to heal them back to at least a basic function, this is more evidence that the body just works better on a LCHF diet that produces ketones for energy instead of glucose.

You can also find an article on Does a Ketogenic Diet Cause Kidney Stones here.

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