SELF Newsletter Hi SELF Family, If you have kidney disease, someone has probably handed you a list of foods to limit because of phosphorus, and beans, lentils, nuts, and whole grains were on it. That list was built on how much phosphorus each food contains. What reaches your blood depends on how much of it you absorb, and that changes which foods belong on the list. On Saturday I was on the main stage at San Diego VegFest, in Balboa Park, on a panel called Be Alive and Thrive. Before the...
11 days ago • 4 min read
SELF Newsletter Hi SELF Family, Tomorrow night I go live for members to answer the questions you asked most this month. Since the end of August I read through roughly 700 comment threads, grouped the questions by how many different people asked them, and kept the five I could answer with named studies and the current kidney guideline. A lot of those questions came from the same worry: a number on a lab report moved, and nobody told you why. If that has kept you up at night, it was a...
15 days ago • 4 min read
SELF Newsletter Hi SELF Family, You have kidney disease, or you're keeping an eye on a kidney number, and at some point someone told you the answer might be in your gut: a probiotic made for kidneys, or a fiber that pulls the toxins out before your kidneys have to deal with them. The logic sounds right, and part of it is. A viewer on this week's video asked me directly: “any views on acacia fibre for toxin removal in gut, rather than putting load on kidney?” I want to answer that properly,...
18 days ago • 5 min read
SELF Newsletter Hi SELF Family, Your kidney function test came back a little off, so you did what a lot of people do next. You ate lighter for a week, maybe you bought the tea, and the repeat test looked better. That better number is real. This letter is about why it probably had nothing to do with the tea, and how to make sure your next kidney test is telling you the truth. Start with the number itself. The kidney function number on your lab report is the eGFR, short for estimated glomerular...
26 days ago • 4 min read
SELF Newsletter Hi SELF Family, Tomorrow night I go live, free and open to everyone, with 6 studies that were all published in the last 2 months. I have read every one of them, and 4 of them come down to the same uncomfortable idea. The label on the food, the number on the scale, and the name of your diet tell you less than you think. Your body reads the ingredients. This letter is the preview. The live is where I show you the numbers and take your questions. Start with the one that surprised...
29 days ago • 2 min read
SELF NEWSLETTER Hi SELF Family, You bought it for your hair. Your next blood test may notice it, too. Biotin is a B vitamin found in many hair-and-nail pills. Here is the part the bottle may not make clear: a high dose can make some blood test results look wrong. [1] In Friday’s supplement video, we looked at what your kidneys must clear. Today, I want to add a different question: Could a pill change how the lab reads your blood? That is what researchers tested in a small study published in...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
SELF Newsletter Hi SELF Family, After a kidney stone, somebody probably told you to cut back on calcium. It is the most intuitive instruction in medicine. The stone is made of calcium, so eat less calcium. You cut the dairy. The stone came back anyway. This letter is about what happened when a five-year trial finally tested that instruction head to head. 120 men with recurrent calcium stones were split at random onto two diets and followed for five years. One group got the old advice and cut...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
SELF Members Live AMA Thursday, August 27, 6 PM PacificMembers only, about 30 minutes plus live questions Hi SELF Family, Tomorrow evening I go live in the members room. This is the smaller one, where I take fewer questions and go much deeper on each. Every question tomorrow came from you. I pulled 73 questions out of the comments on the last 11 videos, clustered them by how many different people asked the same thing, and then applied one rule: it only makes the list if I can answer it from...
about 1 month ago • 3 min read
SELF Newsletter Hi SELF Family, You were told to eat more protein. Nobody told you how much, and nobody told you when. So you added a scoop, or a second egg, and the arithmetic at the end of the day looked fine. The strength did not follow. This letter is about why a day can add up correctly and still miss. Start with breakfast, because that is where almost everyone is furthest under. One large egg carries about six grams of protein. Two eggs is twelve. That is a breakfast a lot of people are...
about 2 months ago • 3 min read
