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Comment by ycombinete | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what the stats are, but my anecdote is that two family members who did long term keto have both developed permanent renal problems in their 60s. They can now eat only very little protein.

The one person's Dr. told her that the main issue is that she was eating way too much protein. Which might mean she wasn't doing Keto quite right. But I don't know enough about the diet myself to say for sure.

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Thanks, that's very interesting.

I was concerned about that and had my liver checked a couple of years ago but it might have been too early then. I'll brush up on that.

The kidney is the organ that deals with the nitrogen waste from proteins.

My guess would be this is just nonsense.

No one has an eating too much protein problem. The average person has a sitting on their ass problem that leads to all kinds of health issues, especially when combined with a too many calorie problem.

There is absolutely no evidence that long term high protein consumption leads to these things.

My anecdote is that I was diagnosed with stage 3 kidney disease, likely as a result of years of very high blood pressure. Four years later, using medication to get the blood pressure down to near-normal, and following a high-fat/keto diet, my kidneys were operating perfectly in the normal range. (I didn't tell my doctor about my diet, because I needed him to prescribe the BP meds and didn't want him nagging me about diet. One mention of "healthy grains" was enough.)

The "your kidneys will fall out" nonsense has been circulating since I first started hanging out on alt.support.diet.low-carb in the mid-90s. Probably since Atkins first published his book. It's superstition.

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