3rd International Conference on
Chronic Diseases

Ruth Kander qualified with a BSc in Nutrition from Kings College London in December 1994 and went on to study a postgraduate diploma in dietetics at Kings College London and graduated December 1995. She started her career at St George’s Hospital in Tooting and worked there for 6 years. During that time, she was involved with general medicine and general surgery. In April 1999 Ruth started a role in renal dietetics. Ruth went on to work at Imperial College healthcare in 2002 and continues to be a dietitian at The West London Kidney and transplant centre. She currently specializes in haemodialysis and nephrology patients. She has a 300-dialysis caseload and a large nephrology population. She is passionate about helping people be the best they can be through nutrition and lifestyle. She has been involved with national guidelines for salt and fluid management in haemodialysis patients and dietary management of kidney stones. She is a reviewer for the Journal of Kidne Care. Aside from the NHS, she has a busy private practice in central London. In the past 6 months she has started a social media account called Kidney dietitian trying to educate the public and people not within a renal unit on Nutrition and the kidney.

There are millions of people in the world with CKD. About 1 in 10 people have some form of CKD. People with chronic kidney disease stages 1-4 do often do not have access to dietetic / specialised nutrition care and they can be searching around for special diets to help “cure” their kidney disease. In the vast world of the world wide web with many websites and videos on how and what to eat, it can be dangerous and confusing for the CKD patient. Nutritional advice for the CKD patient from a trained renal dietitian can help delay in CKD progression, by improvement in co morbidities such as obesity, diabetes and hypertension, the patient can learn how to self-manage by eating the corrects foods and having a lifestyle that helps the patient to perhaps delay their progression of CKD and allow them to be as healthy as they can be for as long as possible. This session will discuss the various diets that exists, what patients should be doing to help themselves and what the current literature advocates. In the early CKD stages 1-4 it’s all about self-management and helping patients to feel empowered to self- manage and for them to know where to look for information and what information is useful to them.