Is Watermelon Good To Eat For Stage 5 PKD Patients

2015-07-06 08:36

Watermelon is one of the fruits most associated with summer, but next to the delicious sweet taste, it also contains medicinal properties: lowering blood pressure, treating edema, and alleviating constipation and more. Well, is watermelon good to eat for stage 5 polycystic kidney disease (PKD) patients?

Since medical conditions vary from person to person, some PKD patients can eat watermelon while some should avoid watermelon.

1. Who can consume watermelon?

Relieve edema

Watermelon is a natural diuretic while ridding the body of excess fluids. This can alleviate edema to some extent.

Lower high blood pressure

It is found that watermelon is loaded with an amino acid called L-citrulline which helps improve circulation, relaxes arteries and lowers people’s systolic blood pressure by as much as nine points.

Good for diabetic patients

If you have diabetes, you are encouraged to eat watermelon as part of a healthy diet.

2. Who should limit the watermelon intake?

With the progression of PKD, kidney function will decline due to enlarged kidney cysts. When kidneys are damaged, potassium and phosphorus are easy to elevate. Thus, PKD patients have to restrict potassium and phosphorus these two minerals. High potassium in blood can be a true medical emergency because it causes irregularly heartbeats. The expert recommends that patients limit their intake of watermelon to 1 cup per day. This size serving has 180mg of potassium.

Stage 5 PKD patients can eat watermelon but they should keep in mind do not eat too much, otherwise it can affect the treatment effect of PKD to a large extent.

Apart from paying more attention to the diet, PKD patients also need to take measurement to stop the growth of kidney cysts and shrink kidney cysts. This can be achieved by Chinese Medicine which can increase the permeability of cystic wall and block the fluid supply of cysts. With high permeability of sac walls, more sac fluid will be discharged from the body through blood circulation but do not have any supply. After a period of treatment, kidney cysts can be shrunk. More importantly, kidney function will be reversed greatly. In this way, PKD patients can live a relatively high quality of life.

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