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The Beginner’s Guide to Starting a Plant-Based Diet (When You Have Kidney Disease)

Why start a plant-based diet?

“A plant-based diet includes eating more plant foods like whole grains, fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes (beans, peas, and lentils), and healthy plant oils (such as olive or canola) and less animal foods like dairy, eggs, fish, and meat. Growing evidence shows that plant-based diets may help prevent health problems like heart disease and further kidney damage in people with kidney disease. Some studies say that people living with kidney disease who followed a plant-based diet lived longer than those whose diets were more animal-based. However, starting a plant-based diet does not mean that you need to become a vegetarian and cut all sources of animal protein from your diet. One study has shown that swapping out animal protein with plant protein at two out of three meals per day may be enough to provide health benefits of a plant-based diet in patients with chronic kidney disease.”

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USC Stem Cell scientists make big progress in building mini-kidneys

“A team of scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC has created what could be a key building block for assembling a synthetic kidney. In a new study in Nature Communications, Zhongwei Li and his colleagues describe how they can generate rudimentary kidney structures, known as organoids, that resemble the collecting duct system that helps maintain the body’s fluid and pH balance by concentrating and transporting urine.

“Our progress in creating new types of kidney organoids provides powerful tools for not only understanding development and disease, but also finding new treatments and regenerative approaches for patients,” said Li, the study’s corresponding author and an assistant professor of medicine, and of stem cell biology and regenerative medicine.”

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Despite COVID-19, Cedars-Sinai Hits New Transplant Record

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“This spring, anesthesiologist Jennifer Cutler, MD, was looking forward to a weekend relaxing with her husband and two teenaged children when she got the call – she was urgently needed to oversee anesthesiology for not one, but two, liver transplants at Cedars-Sinai.

Cutler, who enjoys spending her weekends going on long runs, catching up on her to-do list and savoring family dinners, dropped everything to come in to work. She wasn’t “on call,” per se, but Cutler said that when she and her fellow anesthesiologists are needed for a transplant surgery, they go.

“Even when we’re not on call, we just all pitch in and get the cases done,” Cutler said. “We have always had an attitude of teamwork.”

That weekend, surgeons from the Cedars-Sinai Comprehensive Transplant Center and Smidt Heart Institute performed a whopping 11 transplant surgeries in a single weekend. They performed one heart transplant, two liver transplants, two dual kidney/pancreas transplants, and six kidney transplants (including one pediatric kidney transplant).”

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Could Nixing Race-Adjustments for eGFR Harm Black Cancer Patients?

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“Removing race from estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) equations would result in fewer Black patients being eligible for certain anticancer drugs, researchers have demonstrated.

Their analysis showed that for Black patients, removing race from the Chronic Kidney Disease-Epidemiology Collaboration (CKD-EPI) equation reduced median eGFR from 103 mL/min to 89 mL/min. In addition, removing the race factor doubled the percentage of black patients with an eGFR under 60 mL/min — a clinically relevant cut-off below which many drugs have recommended changes to dosage and eligibility, reported Thomas D. Nolin, PharmD, PhD, of the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy, and colleagues.”

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Weight Cycling Linked With Poor Outcomes in Chronic Kidney Disease

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“Large fluctuations in body mass index (BMI) over time — otherwise known as weight cycling — were associated with poorer outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to an observational study.

In 84,636 predialysis patients with CKD followed for a median of 4 years, those in the highest quartile of BMI variability had an increased risk for all-cause mortality compared with the lowest quartile (HR 1.66, 95% CI 1.53-1.81, P<0.001), reported Dong Ki Kim, MD, PhD, of Seoul National University College of Medicine in South Korea, and colleagues.”

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Blue Shield of California invests in Cricket Health expansion aimed at treating kidney disease

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“Improving clinical outcomes for people with kidney disease results in lower costs for health plan partners, according to Cricket.

Today, Cricket Health closed an $83.5 million Series B funding round led by Valtruis, which will enable Cricket’s expansion to support demand for its care model for people with kidney disease.

Blue Shield of California made a strategic investment of an unspecified amount. The round also includes existing investors Oak HC/FT and Cigna Ventures, as well as K2 HealthVentures.

The expansion will improve clinical outcomes for people with kidney disease, resulting in lower costs for health plan partners, according to Cricket. In both Texas and California, across commercial and Medicare Advantage health plan partnerships, Cricket Health said it has shown improvements in key clinical measures for its populations living with kidney disease.”

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U.S. FDA authorizes COVID-19 vaccine boosters for the immunocompromised

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“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized a third dose of COVID-19 vaccines from Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) and Moderna Inc (MRNA.O) for people with compromised immune systems.

The amended emergency use authorization paves the way for people who have had an organ transplant, or those with a similar level of weakened immune system, to get an extra dose.

“After a thorough review of the available data, the FDA determined that this small, vulnerable group may benefit from a third dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines,” Janet Woodcock, U.S. FDA’s acting commissioner, said in a tweet on Thursday.”

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NIH launches study of third COVID-19 vaccine dose in kidney transplant recipients

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“A pilot study has begun to assess the antibody response to a third dose of an authorized COVID-19 mRNA vaccine in kidney transplant recipients who did not respond to two doses of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The Phase 2 trial is sponsored and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.

The lifelong immunosuppressive therapy that organ transplant recipients must take to prevent organ rejection blunts their immune response to both pathogens and vaccines. Research has shown that many organ transplant recipients do not develop antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, after receiving an authorized COVID-19 vaccine regimen. The purpose of the new study is to determine whether a third dose of one of the mRNA COVID-19 vaccines could overcome this problem for at least some kidney transplant recipients. This is particularly important because this population has a high prevalence of conditions that are risk factors for severe COVID-19, such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes.”

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Making transplants without a lifelong regimen of anti-rejection drugs a reality at UCLA Health

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“When he was a medical trainee, UCLA Health nephrologist Erik Lum, MD, was part of a team at Stanford University exploring how to create “tolerance” in kidney-transplant patients — a process that encourages the body to welcome the new organ without the necessity for a lifelong regimen of anti-rejection drugs.

Now, Dr. Lum is among the leaders of a multidisciplinary team making transplant tolerance a reality at UCLA Health. Two kidney transplants have been performed thus far under the advanced protocol, making UCLA Health one of only five medical centers in the world capable of the groundbreaking approach hailed as “the Holy Grail” of transplantation.

“It requires a lot of interplay between different divisions,” Dr. Lum says. “To me, it really demonstrates the strength of a place like UCLA. You can’t do this just anywhere. It’s a huge collaboration.”

The protocol brings together a broad range of specialties, including nephrology, urology, hematology, radiation oncology and others, for a series of treatments that prime the transplant recipient’s body to accept the new organ.”

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FDA authorizes Covid antibody treatment as preventive after exposure

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“The unvaccinated or people with weak immune systems at high risk of severe disease can receive an injection if exposed to an infected person.

People at considerable risk of developing severe Covid-19, including millions of Americans with compromised immune systems, now have the option of receiving a preventive monoclonal antibody treatment if they have been or are at risk of being exposed to the coronavirus.

The Food and Drug Administration’s action on Friday brings hope to the estimated 3 percent of Americans who are immunocompromised, including those with autoimmune diseases, HIV patients, cancer patients and organ transplant recipients, who may still be vulnerable to Covid even after being fully vaccinated.

This is the first time an injectable coronavirus antibody treatment has been approved for use as a prevention of Covid after someone has been exposed to the virus.”

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