Sean Hashmi, MD

When a patient is told they have chronic kidney disease, the first thing they usually hear from the internet is what to take away. Cut the salt. Cut the potassium. Cut the protein. Within a week, the refrigerator looks emptier and the question is not what to eat, it is whether anything is left. The newer science tells a different story. The kidney-friendly diet of 2026 is less about subtraction and more about a deliberate set of additions, anchored to one number most patients have never...

More than 1 in 7 US adults has chronic kidney disease, and roughly 9 in 10 don't know they have it (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2023). The reason is simple and frustrating: the early signs of kidney damage are quiet. By the time most people feel something is off, kidney function has often been declining for years. The good news is that your body does send signals, and a small set of inexpensive lab tests can catch trouble early enough to actually change the trajectory....

If you ate chicken this week, there is a real chance you accidentally ate a processed meat. I will explain exactly how that happens in a moment, but first I want to share the number that changed how I counsel my patients on protein. A landmark study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology followed more than 63,000 adults for 15 years and found that the highest consumers of red meat had a 40% increased risk of complete kidney failure compared to those who ate the least....