Healthy Diet, Intermittent Fasting and PKD (07/10/21)

This webinar was presented as part 3/3 of the PKD Education Series on July 10th 2021.
This session consisted of two parts:
(1) Lecture (20 minutes and 10 minutes Q&A): Review: (i) recent preclinical studies of novel dietary intervention (e.g. caloric restriction, ketotic diet) in slowing experimental PKD progression; (ii) elements of a healthy diet; (iii) potential utility of intermittent fasting or time-restricted feeding for clinical treatment of ADPKD.
(2) Practical advice for a healthy diet by a registered RD and Open forum for Q&A (30 minutes).
Speakers:
York Pei MD (Moderator): Senior Scientist, Toronto General Hospital Research Institute (TGHRI)
Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto
Nephrologist, Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network
Toronto, ON
Dr. Pei is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Toronto. He is also a staff nephrologist at the Toronto General Hospital, University Health Network, where he directs the Center for Innovative Management for Polycystic Kidney Disease (www.cimpkd.ca/our-team.html). He received research training in both Clinical Epidemiology and Human Molecular Genetics. His research program focuses on genetic, genomic, and translational research of hereditary kidney diseases with a major focus on autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease and is supported by grants from the Kidney Foundation of Canada, Physicians Incorporated Foundation, Polycystic Kidney Disease Foundation (USA), and Canadian Institutes of Health Research. He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed papers and had had served in the Editorial Board for the Journal of American Society of Nephrology and Grant Review Panels for the Kidney Foundation of Canada, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, PKD foundation (USA), and National Institutes of Health, USA. He was a co-recipient of the 2019 Lillian J. Kaplan International Prize for Advancement in the Understanding of Polycystic Kidney Disease (www.theisn.org/about-isn/awar....
Thomas Weimbs PhD:
Dr. Weimbs received his doctoral degree from the Department of Biochemistry of the University of Cologne, Germany, in 1993. He conducted postdoctoral research at the Department of Anatomy, University of California at San Francisco until 1999. In the same year, he joined the Department of Cell Biology in the Lerner Research Institute of the Cleveland Clinic as an Assistant Professor where he established his research laboratory focusing on investigating membrane trafficking and epithelial cell polarity as well as molecular mechanisms underlying polycystic kidney disease. In 2005, Dr. Weimbs was recruited to the Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology and moved his laboratory to UCSB. Dr. Weimbs is currently an Associate Professor in MCDB and in the Neuroscience Research Institute.
Hoon-Ki Sung PhD:
Dr Sung received his M.D. from South Korea in 1997. In 2004, he obtained his Ph.D. in the Department of Clinical Oriented Anatomy and Functional Histology, University of Yeungnam. Following his Ph.D., he did his postdoctoral research at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in the laboratory of Dr Gou Young Koh. In 2006, he moved to Toronto and joined the laboratory of Dr Andras Nagy in the Tanenbaum-Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital. In 2014, he established his laboratory in the Physiology and Experimental Medicine Program at the Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute. His main research interest includes adipose biology and metabolism, angiogenesis and stem cell.

[@t.c.s.7724]

Thank you for this empowering discussion. Individuals need not be passive victims of pkd, healing via diet modification is game changing.

[@gracegiven5093]

Thanks! Very valuable presentation.

[@CaptainSteve777]

Excellent discussion. Thank you all.

[@gracegiven5093]

I'm stage 5 (eGFR=9), pre-dialysis. I've been on intermittent fasting (IF) for 2 months, after looking into research on how to deal with slow gastric emptying. I have found IF to be very helpful, likely because I fast for 18 hours, which gives my stomach time to process food and empty as well as "rest". People with PKD need nutritional information as it is more important than previously understood, IMHO.

[@Lima547]

I also have PKD. eGFR 28. I try to eat well and be healthy, which is helpful as whole. I just feel frustrated that a transplant, a synthetic kidney or gene therapy would do much more compared to myself abdicating of so many things in my life to gain a few months of kidney function. What we need is more reliable ground breaking technology to fix the PKD. Faster and well conducted research. The rest is just mopping the rain.

[@gracegiven5093]

@@Lima547 Yes, you're right. The presenters deftly alluded to the problem more than once. There's no $$$ in correcting PKD kidneys and offering a gene solution. Big Pharma profits greatly from the cocktail of chemicals a transplant patient must take to avoid rejection. Additionally, having taken Tolvaptan the price tag for such an intervention is significant and not available without insurance and the drug manufacturer "working" with insurance to make it accessible.

[@Lima547]

@@gracegiven5093 Did Tolvaptan work for you? I didn’t for me and my eGFR dropped bellow 30 and I had to stop. I was peeing the entire night and I didn’t like it. My nephrologist in Calgary said if you are responsible enough to drink 4L of water a day that medication is not necessary, plus it can come with side effects. I completely agree. If you already have a condition like PKD, you should not have to endure financial instability due to high cost medications.

[@gracegiven5093]

@@Lima547 My eGFR was 20 when started, which is the cut-off point, actually. There is not much data on how someone at 20 responds to Tolvaptan, but I was willing to try since my nephrologist was willing to trial me on it. I was on it for approximately 14 months. In the end, my eGFR dropped, as I had some difficulty with phosphorus, if I recall correctly - or maybe potassium. While I mostly felt good on the drug, near the end, I felt brain fog. I think it did buy me some time since my father went into failure at 54, and I made it past that marker. It will be interesting to learn when the study is complete as to whether people at the end range actually do benefit.

[@islander1]

@@gracegiven5093 Fresnius and DaVita make a LOT of money off of us via dialysis equipment, too.