How potassium affects kidney patients

Hot Topics in Kidney Health

One of the jobs your kidneys is to manage your body’s levels of potassium, which keeps your heartbeat regular and your muscles working right. Many kidney patients need to watch what they eat to ensure that their potassium levels don’t become too high and cause dangerous health risks. On today’s episode, you’ll hear how to best manage your potassium levels to protect yourself.

In this episode, we spoke with:

Jessianna Saville, RD

Jessianna Saville RD, CSR LDN is a renal dietitian with over 12 years experience. After working 8 years in the dialysis setting, she decided to fully concentrate her energy on her virtual practice and helping provide early nutrition intervention for kidney disease clients. She is the founder and owner of KidneyNutritionInstitute.org, a collective of expert renal dietitians that serve all areas of kidney disease. She is also the founder of RenAlign, a non-profit that advocates for nutrition as a first line therapy for kidney disease through the RenaLIFE and Ren.Nu programs. She and her team develop training resources for other renal dietitians at RenalNutritionMastery.com, helping them stay up-to-date on all things renal nutrition and guiding them through setting up their own private practice. Her passion for good food shows up in the kidney-friendly recipes her team creates on the blog and the amount of time she spends cooking herself. Along for the ride with Jessianna are her three children and husband, a very old dog, 2 kittens, and 4 friendly backyard chickens.

Dawn Edwards

Self-described 25+ Year chronic kidney disease Warrior, Dawn P. Edwards, a nocturnal home hemodialysis patient, has experienced first-hand, every renal replacement modality including a kidney transplant, rejection and return to dialysis. Dawn is dedicated to improving the quality of life of people with kidney disease, and is also a resource to her community, sharing her story and educating patients, professionals and the public about the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle and the relationship between hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease, especially among people of color and low socioeconomic status. Dawn has served the community for over 25 years through the IPRO ESRD Network of New York in multiple roles including employment as their Community Outreach Coordinator. She is an NKF Kidney Advocate and Peer Mentor and also currently serves on many kidney disease related boards.

Additional resources:

Potassium and Your CKD Diet

Kidney-friendly recipes

Episode transcript

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