| Ilena Rose 2005-01-31, 11:52 am |
| Preventing Kidney Disease?
Provided by DrWeil.com
Q: I have been told I have a high reading of protein in my urine. My
doctor prescribed lisinopril. I don't like the side effects. Is there
anything natural I can take to decrease the protein level? --
Anonymous
A: Proteinuria - protein in the urine (determined by urinalysis) -
often indicates some type of kidney disease. The first thing you have
to determine is what is causing the problem. Normally, the kidneys
filter waste products out of the blood so they can be eliminated from
the body. Most proteins are too big to pass through the kidneys'
filtering system unless the filters have been damaged in some way.
Among the possibilities: some variety of nephritis, a group of
diseases, usually autoimmune, that cause inflammatory damage to the
kidneys. Diabetes can also result in kidney damage, as can high blood
pressure. In fact, elevated blood pressure often accompanies kidney
disease and accelerates it.
If you have proteinuria and high blood pressure, you do need drug
treatment to bring it down. The drug you were prescribed, lisinopril,
is an ACE (angiotensin-converting enzyme) inhibitor, a type of blood
pressure medication that works better than other drugs to reduce the
pressure in blood vessels in the kidneys and increase the flow of
urine, which helps lower blood pressure. I know of no natural
alternative to drug treatment for this problem. Jonathan Dranov, MD, a
nephrologist in State College, PA, tells me that 15 to 20 percent of
patients taking ACE inhibitors develop a cough as a side effect.
Unfortunately, if this happens to you as a result of taking this
medication, you'll likely have the same cough with other ACE
inhibitors. In that case, an option would be to try angiotensin
receptor blockers (ARB), another type of medication. These two types
of drugs appear to work to protect kidney function better than other
medications used to treat high blood pressure.
It is very important to work with your doctor to find a treatment that
you can tolerate that is effective for the kidney problem causing
proteinuria. Otherwise, it is likely that your kidney function will
deteriorate, and you'll be in very big trouble, eventually requiring
dialysis.
Andrew Weil, MD
Last Reviewed: January 2005
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