Patients with kidney disease often ask us, “what can I do myself to improve my health?”<\/p>\n
For most individuals with kidney disease, the sorts of things you can do to improve your health are the same sorts of things that everyone in the general population can do to improve their health.\u00a0 Only in very advanced kidney disease (e.g. CKD stage 4 or on dialysis) are additional lifestyle modifications usually advised.\u00a0 (These may include things like dietary modifications or restricting fluid intake but will be bespoke advice from the kidney team that will vary from patient-to-patient.)<\/p>\n
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The main components of a healthy lifestyle are:<\/p>\n
These aspects of healthy lifestyle are emphasised by the World Health Organisation<\/a> and the UK and Scottish Governments<\/a>.\u00a0 To find out a little more about the evidence behind this, see “Further information” at the bottom of the page.<\/p>\n Individuals with chronic kidney disease (CKD) have increased risk of developing stroke, heart attack and heart failure and so the benefits of following a healthy lifestyle to reduce these risks is likely to be exaggerated.\u00a0 In other words, it is all the more important to follow a healthy lifestyle if you have kidney disease.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you would like to take active steps to improve your health then you could consider:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you would like to be able to see your own test results and message your kidney doctor directly then sign up for a free account with Patients Know Best<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n If you would like to find out more about healthy living and \/ or living with kidney disease then the following websites provide good, reliable information:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n How do we know the key components of a healthy lifestyle and how important are they?\u00a0 The effects of the lifestyle factors listed above have been explored in observational studies, where individuals complete lifestyle surveys and are then followed up to see what happens to them in later years. Each of these above factors is associated with an additional two to three years of life-expectancy, and the effects are additive.\u00a0 So, for example, people following a healthy diet, regular physical activity, not smoking and maintaining a healthy body weight will – on average – live for 8 to 12 years longer than people ticking none of those boxes.\u00a0 This is not quite the same as saying that, for any one individual, choosing to follow any of these lifestyle factors will extend life expectancy by two to three years, but there is a lot of other evidence that following a healthy diet, exercising, not smoking etc. is very likely to improve the duration and quality of your life.\u00a0 If you are interested in these sorts of studies then the links to some original research articles are here: Li (Circulation, 2018)<\/a>, Khera (NEJM, 2016)<\/a>, Nguyen (AJCN, 2024), <\/a>Bian (BMJEMB, 2023)<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n This page was written by Robert Hunter (Sep 2024).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Patients with kidney disease often ask us, “what can I do myself to improve my health?” For most individuals with kidney disease, the sorts of things you can do to improve your health are the same sorts of things that everyone in the general population can do to improve their\u2026<\/p>\nWhat can I do?<\/h3>\n
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Where can I find out more?<\/h3>\n
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Further information and references<\/h3>\n
Acknowledgements<\/h3>\n