tracking phosphorus for kidney disease

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catmarch4
catmarch4 Posts: 17 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi - Just found out I have kidney disease, and one of the nutrients I have to track is phosphorus. Does anybody know how to ask for an additional nutrient to be added to our drop down menu of tracking choices?

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  • harper16
    harper16 Posts: 2,564 Member
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    I tried looking in the Settings area of my food, and wasn't able to find a way to track it. Is that something that can easily be tracked?

  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,988 Member
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    Unfortunately, your best bet is to track this manually or find another site that already gives you the option to track this.

    MFP would have to make a programming change, but first the FDA would have to require it on food labels - it is currently optional.

    Hopefully, your doctor already provided you with a list of foods to limit or avoid, but in case not: https://www.kidney.org/atoz/content/phosphorus

    I see that cheese is on that list and looked up cheddar on the USDA database, which does include phosphorus values. https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/170899/nutrients
  • Beautyofdreams
    Beautyofdreams Posts: 1,009 Member
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    You should also be tracking potassium in foods. It is a little easier to find on labels than phosphorous but still not required. Do you have a dialysis center near you that you can get info from. They usually have flyers on foods that can and cannot be eaten that are distributed to their clients each month. I was on dialysis for three years until I received a kidney/pancreas transplant so I remember how limited a dialysis diet is.
  • lorrpb
    lorrpb Posts: 11,464 Member
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    Although potassium is important got dialysys pts, OP does not indicate they’re supposed to track Potassium (which also is not required on food labels). If they’re not on dialysis they prob can’t get a consult with a dialysis center. But DO ask doctor for referral to registered dietitian.
  • ahoy_m8
    ahoy_m8 Posts: 3,053 Member
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    Nutritiondata.com has complete micronutrient information. It’s not set up for day by day logging, but you can track one day at a time.

    Before I used MFP, I tracked on nutritiondata.com and used the recipe builder to pre-log future days.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,988 Member
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    If you are supposed to track potassium and didn't ask about it because this is already an option, there are some things you should know.

    A lot of the MFP database was crowd sourced. I am anemic and track iron. The majority of the user-created entry values for iron are wrong - either they put in the wrong value, or no value. I verify every user-created entry against the package. (Alas, you cannot just scan with your phone and assume what you get is correct.)

    Fortunately for me, I eat a lot of whole foods for which I can find entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database, and these have correct micro-nutrients like iron (and potassium.)

    Unfortunately, the green check marks in the MFP database are used for both user-created entries and admin-created entries that MFP pulled from the USDA database. To find admin entries for whole foods, I get the syntax from the USDA database and paste that into MFP.

    The USDA changed the platform for their database in 2019 and it is unfortunately a little more difficult to use. I uncheck everything but SR Legacy - that seems to be what MFP used to pull in entries.

    Note: any MFP entry that includes "USDA" was user entered.
  • HeidiCooksSupper
    HeidiCooksSupper Posts: 3,831 Member
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    An automatic tracking device on MFP would be terribly inaccurate because most database entries do not have accurate phosphorus data (and cannot because its not on all nutrition labels). Unfortunately, you are left to avoiding high phosphorus foods and monitoring you blood test phosphorus levels.

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