Why Hemodialysis Patients Need to Limit Their Potassium and Phosphorus Intake
2014-02-15 06:04
Why hemodialysis patients need to limit their potassium and phosphorus intake? This is a common question for people with hemodialysis who need to limit their potassium and phosphorus intake.
Potassium and phosphorus are two important minerals for our body, which have many functions for building up of the body. Potassium is a mineral which can be found in most of the foods, and potassium has the function of helping muscle movement and keeping the nervous system healthy. It can also help balance the water in body, and potassium is mainly excreted by kidneys. When people get kidney disease, the kidney will fail to work well, and the excess potassium will build up in blood, which will cause high potassium level, and it will be harmful to heart.
Phosphorus is also a mineral which can be found in some certain foods, and phosphorus in body can help strong bones and teeth. when the kidneys are damaged, the phosphorus will also get higher than the normal level, and high phosphorus levels in blood will cause bone problems for patients.
Hemodialysis patients are often recommended to limit the potassium intake, because the potassium level will be increased during the dialysis treatments, which will cause weakness, muscle cramps, tiredness and heart problems. So hemodialysis patients need to limit their potassium intake in their daily life.
Foods high in phosphorus should also be limited in people with hemodialysis, because dialysis can only help remove small amount of phosphorus from blood, and the high phosphorus level in blood will cause itching, weak and brittle bones and cause some other serious complications. So hemodialysis patients should also limit their daily phosphorus intake.
From above, we can know that potassium and phosphorus level will be helpful for kidney disease patients, but high potassium and high phosphorus levels will cause serious complications for people. Therefore, hemodialysis should keep proper amount of potassium and phosphorus intake in their daily life depending ion their illness condition.
- Tag: Hemodialysis
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