Below is an article from a recent issue of a health news letter I receive: High-Fat Diet Helps Kidneys Not only is diabetes a difficult disease in and of itself, but it also brings some terrible complications, some of which are life-threatening -- including kidney damage, long thought to be irreversible. But maybe it's not... I just read a fascinating new study showing that there is a way to reverse kidney damage from diabetes (type 1 and type 2), and believe it or not, the key is eating a high-fat diet! Is This for Real? It's not quite as simple as dining regularly on marbled steaks and rich ice cream, however. This research focused on what's called a ketogenic diet, a type of diet that has been used for decades to control seizures in children with severe epilepsy. It's a rigid eating plan in which people typically eat about four times as much fat (described in detail later) as carbohydrates and protein, for a diet that is 75% to 80% fat. Charles V. Mobbs, PhD, professor of neuroscience, geriatrics and palliative medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, told me that this study is the first one ever to suggest that dietary intervention can turn around kidney damage and possibly other diabetes-related complications as well. At Mount Sinai, Dr. Mobbs and his team examined the effects of a ketogenic diet in mice bred to have diabetes. They allowed the diabetic mice to develop kidney failure and put half on the diet (in this case 87% fat, 8% protein, 5% carbohydrates) and half on a high-carbohydrate control diet of standard mouse chow (11% fat, 23% protein, 64% carbohydrates). After eight weeks, kidney failure was reversed -- meaning that urine analysis showed normal, healthy levels of albumin and creatinine -- in mice on the ketogenic diet. The mice on the control diet died. Tricking the Body Here's how the ketogenic diet works: Similar to the low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet, it essentially tricks the body into believing that it is in starvation mode, a condition that produces lowered blood glucose levels and higher blood fat levels. These cues trigger the body to manufacture molecules called ketones -- an indication that the body is using fat to provide fuel for energy to the cells. (Normally, the body uses glucose for fuel.) People with diabetes have elevated blood sugar (as you know), causing excess glucose metabolism -- this is what causes diabetes-related kidney failure, Dr. Mobbs explained. But once blood glucose is relatively low and ketones are high (providing an alternative source of energy), the kidneys can take a rest from glucose metabolism -- and thereby regenerate themselves. These findings were published in the April 20, 2011 issue of PLoS ONE. If this process is found to work in humans -- and Dr. Mobbs told me he believes it probably will -- using a ketogenic diet would be a dramatic improvement over dialysis or a kidney transplant, which are at present, the only ways to treat kidney failure. It Works Fast The problem, however, is that the ketogenic diet is so strict and extreme in its requirements (for instance, even toothpaste is restricted in case it has sugar in it) that people find it hard to follow for any length of time. To illustrate: Children put on this diet to control seizures are hospitalized and begin with a 24-hour water fast. Their diet is gradually modified, eventually comprising 75 to 100 calories per 2.2 pounds of body weight with a ratio of three or four times as much fat as carbohydrate and protein -- emphasizing lots of butter, heavy whipping cream, mayonnaise and oils. The children are closely monitored for adverse reactions -- since this is a high-calorie diet, their calorie intake is also watched to be sure that they don't gain weight -- and if all goes well, they are sent home to continue the diet for several months. So it's logical that the next question would be how long does a person have to follow this eating plan for it to work -- forever? The answer is, probably not. Dr. Mobbs told me that he believes that following a ketogenic diet for a short period of time -- perhaps only a month -- may be enough to "reset" the kidneys to begin functioning normally. But this is only a guess, he said, noting that he and his team are conducting further mouse trials to determine exactly how many weeks or months are needed to reverse kidney damage. The research team is also organizing trials in humans, and Dr. Mobbs sees great potential for additional future uses of the ketogenic diet. In years to come, we may see it prescribed to treat a variety of both diabetes-related and nondiabetes-related complications -- for instance, age-related kidney failure not caused by diabetes. No question, this is compelling stuff, and I promise that you'll be hearing more about it in Daily Health News -- but in the meantime, Dr. Mobbs asked me to emphasize that the ketogenic diet is a serious medical intervention that should be attempted only under a doctor's supervision. Do not try it on your own. Source(s): Charles V. Mobbs, PhD, professor of neuroscience, geriatrics and palliative medicine, Mobbs's Aging and Metabolism Lab, Fishberg Department of Neuroscience, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York. http://news.bottomlinepublishing.com/a/hBOW2MiB8V0u3B8c80WNFNORvA-/dhn1? REFERRER_EMAIL=&email=corange@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx