63-year-old Uncle Niu (pseudonym)
Inexplicable acute kidney injury
The local hospital couldn’t find the cause
for this
Uncle Niu rushed to the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University School of Medicine
Experienced experts
After a detailed medical history
The “culprit” was found – purslane
Many people can’t help but wonder when they see this
Isn’t purslane known as the “longevity vegetable”?
Can also be used as a medicinal herb
Why does eating cause kidney damage?
We are not wronging purslane
Experts from the Nephrology Center of the First Hospital of Zhejiang University said
Only recently
4 people have suffered acute kidney injury from eating purslane
But experts say:
Purslane is edible!
But be careful how you eat!
Diabetes Review
An “Unexpected”
The 63-year-old Uncle Niu is from Taizhou. He has been suffering from diabetes for more than 20 years. He has developed from taking drugs to control blood sugar in the early days to relying on insulin to control blood sugar, and he has to go to the hospital regularly every month. Review follow-up. In the latest review, an inspection item attracted the attention of local doctors: Creatinine 220umol/L (normal people’s creatinine is not higher than 100umol/L).
What is creatinine? Creatinine is a product produced by our muscles in the human body’s metabolism. It is mainly filtered out of the body by the kidneys. Uncle Niu’s creatinine is more than 2 times higher than the normal index, indicating that there is a problem with his kidney function. He was admitted to hospital with “acute kidney injury”.
However, the local hospital in Taizhou still could not find out the cause of acute kidney injury after many examinations. It is recommended that Uncle Niu go to Hangzhou Grand Hospital for further examination and treatment to prevent the disease from continuing to develop.
What’s the problem?
Find it as soon as you ask
Uncle Niu, led by his children, went to the outpatient department of the Nephrology Center of the First Hospital of Zhejiang University, and was admitted to the hospital with “acute kidney injury pending investigation”. After being admitted to the hospital, Dr. Lei Wenhua conducted a detailed consultation on Uncle Niu. Since Uncle Niu had no underlying kidney disease before, he first considered whether the damage was caused by drugs. After understanding it, nothing suspicious was found.
“Have you ever eaten something that you haven’t eaten before?” In a word from the attending physician Lei Wenhua, what Uncle Niu thought, “Doctor, I ate my meal a week ago. The wild vegetable purslane picked by my wife, this wild vegetable has never been eaten before, but it tastes very fresh.”
purslane, purslane again! Deputy Chief Physician Lan Lan frowned as soon as she heard the purslane. 3 people have been treated for acute kidney injury recently due to consumption of purslane. It seems that Uncle Niu is likely to be the fourth person recently. .
“What is the practice of purslane? How many meals have you eaten?” Uncle Niu’s wife said that purslane was fried quickly. , Without the boiled water, Deputy Chief Physician Lan Lan already knew what to do, so Uncle Niu did a kidney puncture pathology.
“The renal tubulointerstitial injury, the formation of renal tubule crystals.” Uncle Niu’s pathological results came out, which verified the conjecture of Deputy Chief Physician Lan Lan. Uncle is the 4th patient with acute kidney injury recently due to consumption of purslane.
Uncle Niu recovered his renal function after treatment and was discharged from the hospital.
How can this pathology verify that it is acute kidney injury caused by purslane?
Caution
This is the way to eat these kinds of vegetables
“Portulaca oleracea is rich in oxalic acid, a large intake of oxalic acid in a short period of time can easily form oxalic acid crystals.” Chen Jianghua, Director of the Nephrology Center The professor said that oxalic acid crystals are easy to block the renal tubules. Once the renal tubules are blocked, the metabolic toxins in the body cannot be excreted in time and accumulate, which is the direct reason for the sudden increase in creatinine.
Is purslane still edible? Professor Chen Jianghua said that purslane can be eaten, but one thing to note is that blank before eating, oxalic acid dissolves in water, and the process of blanching can remove a lot of oxalic acid, like the recent and previous ones The patients with acute kidney injury caused by eating purslane in the past year have a common feature – stir-fry without blanching. If you eat a large amount of purslane without blanching in a short period of time, a large amount of oxalic acid will become crystals and it will be easy to “block”, which is likely to cause acute kidney injury, especially for patients with kidney disease or other metabolic diseases. sick people.
Therefore, the “risk factor” of purslane is oxalic acid. Professor Chen Jianghua said that he had received patients with acute kidney injury caused by eating bitter gourd. In our daily life, many vegetables such as bitter gourd and spinach that we often eat contain a lot of oxalic acid. Therefore, when eating such vegetables, it is best to have a process of blanching to remove oxalic acid. If you experience symptoms such as decreased urination and body swelling due to eating vegetables containing a lot of oxalic acid, please seek medical attention as soon as possible to check whether there is renal damage. If acute renal damage is not treated in time, it will develop into chronic kidney disease.
This article is original by the First Academy of Zhejiang University