Replied by Joyce (Joelton, Tn) on 11/16/2007
To Yvette (ll/12/07) I'm not TED, but I have a question. Are you a carbonated beverage addict? I became a firm believer that carbonated beverages destroy the kidneys, after running across several children 5-10 years old, who were spilling protein from their kidneys. They were all 3 -4+ proteinuria. With no other cause found in their urinalysis, I had the mothers stop letting them have any carbonated beverages - only water, milk or fruit juices to drink and return in 1 week for a repeat urinalysis. All of their repeat urines were negative for protein, except for the l0 yr. old who still checked trace (down from 4+). Her mother admitted that she had fudged and let her get a mountain dew on the way to the clinic. The reason I suspected their proteinuria was from carbonated beverages was blurbs I had read years before in some medical journals about a man who developed gross hematuria (Urine obviously bloody) but the doctor could find nothing wrong after admitting to hospital and extensive workup. His urine cleared while in the hospital and he was released & returned to work. A few weeks later, he was back in the hospital with gross hematuria again. This time there apparently was an interested intern who started comparing notes and questioning this patient and another patient with the same problem & no cause found in either case. The thing he learned about both of these men was that they worked in a carbonated beverage plant, at the bottling machine, and when they got thirsty, instead of going for a drink of water, they just grabbed an uncapped bottle from the machine and drank it.
I started asking renal patients (especially the transplant ones) about carbonated beverage ingestion). One of them said his was caused by rheumatic fever, another told me that he didn't drink carbonated beverages but did drink a lot of beer. Most of the others stated they drank from 3 to 5 a day. The fellow being checked in for his second transplant (age 32 - got lst transplant at age 25) said "I hardly ever touch one now but I used to drink the hell out of them". When I asked if he drank 5 or more a day, his wife said "more like 20 to 25 a day". I stopped drinking them myself after a bout of pylonephritis in my early thirties.
