Supported Research

Lay summary

Do you eat bananas? Stop! Eat doughnuts instead. Sounds crazy doesn’t it? Well, if you are living with kidney disease, your health care provider may inadvertently be sending you this message. That is because people with kidney disease often need low potassium diets. We know how much potassium is in fruits and vegetables. What we don’t know is how much potassium is in processed foods.

Because of this knowledge gap, patients are told to avoid fruits and vegetables, but of course, they have to eat something. When processed foods are not mentioned on the teaching materials or by health care providers, these foods seem like good alternatives. Unfortunately, over 56 different potassium-based food additives are approved for use in Canada and their use is expected to increase.

Using grocery store receipts collected from patients with CKD, Kelly Picard’s team is going to complete a large-scale survey of foods sold in Alberta. The foods will be examined for the presence of additives and the amount of potassium additives whenever it is listed on the label. Using the information gathered from the grocery stores, two similar menus will be developed – one that uses unprocessed foods and one that uses processed foods. The team will analyze both menus for minerals important in kidney disease, including sodium, potassium and phosphorus to see what the difference is for the mineral content between these two menus.

Providing patients and health care professionals with information about the potassium content in processed food will help ensure patients have access to the best information possible about what foods to avoid.