Some people facing kidney failure feel that the treatment dialysis is nearly as bad as the disease.
But it's possible that the dreaded dialysis can at least be postponed. A dialysis machine requires patients to be hooked up for long periods several times per week, as it carries out the process of filtering harmful substances from the body. A very low-protein, mostly vegetarian diet, appears to allow patients to put off starting dialysis for an average of a year. It won't cure renal disease, but does slow it down enough to buy patients a little grace period. A recent Johns Hopkins study found that the diet works, when supplemented with amino acid tablets.