Low-protein diets should not be a shackle on quality of life for patients with chronic kidney disease

For a long time, low protein diet has been widely used in clinics as an important measure to slow down the progression of chronic kidney disease (CKD) patients. Its basic principle is based on the fact that long-term control of dietary protein intake can significantly reduce glomerular hyperfiltration and hypermetabolism, thereby reducing the high pressure load on the residual renal units and slowing down the rapid deterioration of renal function. In addition, low protein diet can also reduce proteinuria and improve metabolic acidosis in patients with renal insufficiency; some studies have proved that controlling high protein diet has a better effect in preventing or improving endocrine disorders such as secondary hyperparathyroidism, directly or indirectly regulating the production of certain cell growth factors and certain vasoactive substances, and reducing inflammatory reactions in renal tissues, etc. All of which are also beneficial to CKD patients! All these are beneficial to CKD patients in reducing the workload of their residual renal units. However, from the actual clinical application, the problems caused by long-term low-protein diet are also more prominent, which are mainly reflected in the following aspects: 1. Difficulty in clinical implementation According to the recommendation of China’s current dietary guideline for renal disease, the intake of high-quality protein for patients with CKD stage 3 or above should be controlled at 0.3-0.6 g/(kg-d), and the daily protein intake for patients with a body weight of 70 kg should be limited to 0.3-0.6 g/(kg-d). For a patient weighing 70 kg, the daily intake of protein is only about 40 g/d. With this standard, the choice of ingredients is too small, and the range of recipes is too narrow to meet the daily life and metabolic needs of CKD patients, and many patients suffer from malnutrition due to insufficient protein and calorie supplementation. 2, low-protein ingredients are difficult to make conventional food In order to ensure that the protein does not exceed the standard, in addition to supplementing animal protein with high essential amino acids, the staple food rice can only be limited to about 2 (100g) per day, and other starch-rich ingredients need to be replaced, which is generally difficult to adapt to the people of China who use rice as the staple food, especially after the protein has been extracted from the starch made from the wheat starch food is difficult to mold, the taste is very poor, and can not be used by the majority of CKD patients as a staple food. In particular, foods made from wheat starch after protein extraction are difficult to mold and have a poor texture, and cannot be consumed as a staple food by CKD patients. This is also true in clinical practice, as many CKD patients are unable to tolerate the intense hunger brought about by a low-protein diet, and some have given up adhering to the dietary regimen because of difficulties in adapting to the texture of wheat starch ingredients. Numerous clinical studies have also found a high incidence of malnutrition in patients adhering to a low-protein diet for long periods of time. According to the literature, the prevalence of combined protein-energy metabolism abnormalities in CKD patients can reach 56% to 87%, and the prevalence of malnutrition is even higher in CKD patients entering dialysis treatment. Such a high incidence of malnutrition is obviously closely related to the long-term dietary control and inadequate supplementation of calories and other nutrients in CKD patients. Therefore, from the clinical point of view, low-protein diet is a double-edged sword, which can easily become a shackle if not grasped properly, restricting the normal supplementation of basic nutrients and calories in CKD patients, thus directly affecting the quality of life of CKD patients. Therefore, how to accurately grasp the protein intake of CKD patients and formulate a reasonable and implementable dietary regimen, so that it can not only satisfy the living habits of the Chinese people and gladly be adhered to for a long period of time, but also does not easily occur malnutrition and other common comorbidities in CKD patients, is an arduous task faced by each and every clinician. Only in this way can the therapeutic role of low-protein diet in CKD patients be truly realized. In the last decade or so, research on low-protein rice has developed rapidly at home and abroad. It has been reported in the literature that the use of biological protease technology can degrade the proteins in ordinary rice flour, and the residual rate of rice gluten can be reduced to 0.32% (96.05% of deproteinization rate), and the residual rate of phosphorus is 45.65 mg/100g (70.16% of dephosphorylation rate) after enzyme digestion. At present, the most mature technology in such products is the use of lactic acid bacteria fermentation method for the preparation of low-protein rice, this technology can make the protein content of rice down about 98%. At present, the market supply of de-proteinized rice are imported products, although the protein content of rice is lower, but the price is very expensive, it is difficult to promote in the clinic generally. In recent years, the domestic academician Wan Jianmin team of nearly 100,000 strains of rice hybrid mutant materials through the screening and identification, successfully obtained a series of low gluten protein mutant rice, of which the new variety of W0868 through the identification and has been batch to promote the varieties of rice contains the following characteristics: low protein content, the determination of the W0868 varieties of gluten content of only 2.63%, less than the control group of common rice Half. Large yield, low price. The product and the basic performance of ordinary rice is the same, can be planted in any geographical area, yield and planting costs and ordinary rice is not much difference. The taste and viscosity of this variety of rice after processing are basically the same as that of ordinary rice. It can be seen that once the industrialization of W0868 variety of low-gluten protein rice is successful, the vast majority of CKD patients will no longer need to strictly limit the intake of rice, which will break the shackles of late-stage CKD patients who do not have enough to eat, and greatly improve the dietary status of CKD patients and enhance their adherence to a low-protein diet. Domestic experts through the 36 cases of advanced CKD patients controlled clinical observation initially found that the long-term use of low-gluten rice can bring the following benefits: de-proteinized rice not only has a better safety for advanced CKD patients, but also can greatly improve the adherence to the low-protein diet treatment of these patients. Preliminary studies have demonstrated that patients with advanced CKD who consume deproteinized rice are more likely than controls to have a reduction in urinary protein, improvement in metabolic acidosis, and stabilization of calcium and phosphorus metabolism, and that the progression of their disease is significantly slower than that of the control group. Since low-protein rice has just entered the market, this kind of product has not been fully applied in clinical practice on a large scale and scientifically evaluated, and its effect on the residual renal function of advanced CKD has yet to be confirmed by the observation of a larger sample. However, theoretically speaking, this kind of food can help to reduce the workload of the residual kidney in CKD patients. In addition, CKD patients on a long-term low-protein diet should be supplemented with essential amino acids (α⁃keto acids) and some micronutrients to prevent malnutrition.