Let’s talk kidney health.
Of course, as you know, if we talk about the health of one organ, it’s really about all the organs.
The body being one system, it’s all interconnected.
That also means if we want to support the kidneys, we also need to support the liver, gallbladder, spleen, thyroid, etc.
Those are pretty directly connected, beyond just being in the same body.
The kidneys do a lot of work for us:
• fluid balance
• regulating / filtering minerals from blood
• handling blood pressure
• filtering waste materials (from food, toxins, and medications)
• creating hormones
• activating vitamin D
And there are many things that can harm our kidneys, such as:
• high uric acid levels (which can be present even if you don’t have gout, and one type of kidney stone is uric acid)
• too many oxalates (from foods, generally because the bacteria that would metabolize those for us are killed off easily by antibiotics, and often they don’t re-establish)
• medications
• nutrient deficiencies (like a vitamin B6 deficiency, which is needed to reduce calcium – oxalate levels; or a vitamin E deficiency, which is needed to clear creatinine in diabetic patients especially)
• heavy metals (which we’re all exposed to in various ways, including lead, aluminum, mercury)
• toxic chemicals (like DEA, MEA, TEA, glyphosate, paraquat, PFAS, etc)
As usual, this is not a complete list, but gives you an idea…
Besides working on the list above to support and improve kidney health, further steps to take include:
• Exercise – this is needed for pretty much every parameter of health
• Being overweight also increases risk of kidney stones
• Drinking plenty of clean water
• Avoid pain killers as they’re bad for the kidneys (and liver, stomach…)
• Make sure your blood sugar is in a healthy range (done naturally, not artificially suppressing it, which same goes for blood pressure)
• Being diabetic increases risk of kidney stones, as does high blood pressure
• Do castor oil packs over your kidneys (as always, not while pregnant)
• Eat organic, whole foods (ie not processed, non food)
There are many herbs that are wonderful for kidney health, including:
• Teas such as nettle, dandelion root, ginger, or turmeric
• Glycerites (alcohol free tinctures) like:
• Kidney Boost from Hawaii Pharm
You’ll notice a lot of the things that support kidney health also support your other organs.
Which also may explain why, if someone is dealing with kidney stones, there is a high likelihood of having gallbladder and liver health/stone issues.
And yes, if the gallbladder is having stone issues, so is the liver.
With stones, the size, type, and severity does matter.
Dealing with those can be a touchier topic, with cleanses being a potential option but those really need to be guided by a practitioner.
You should never blindly jump into a stone cleanse, and definitely check out the above suggestions to start supporting the whole body.
Even with kidney stones, your body isn’t fighting you…
… but at some point we do push past what the body can compensate for us, so it’s time for us to help the body.
And of course, some health aspects are far more individual than can be addressed in a format like this here.
