how to lower protein on diet

Question
When my son had his 14 checkup, they found trace of protein in his urine.  We went see the specialist and he recommended kidney biopsy since other tests turned out ok such as kidney developed properly and no sign of high blood pressure.  But I wanted to observe first by changing diet and see if that helps to lower level of protein in his urine before we consider doing the biopsy.  So my question is to find out the minimum amount of protein he could use and still grow healthy, such as min. daily portion size of red meat, fish, chicken or dairy products etc. Basically, I am thinking feeding him minimum of protein and make up the rest with other good stuffs so that I can see if that diet affect the level of protein in his urine next time he goes for the test again.  I was totally lost when I tried to google on the net!  Thanks for your help in advance.  He is 14; 5'6"; less than 100lbs.  He eats regularly and eats good such as cold cut, red meat, white meat, fruits & veggies.  He is not into sports but somewhat active.

Answer
Hi Mabel,

I can appreciate you wanting to avoid a kidney biopsy for your 14 year old boy!

The thing is, there should never be any protein in the urine.  The human body uses all the protein it gets.  Protein is very valuable to all sorts of organs and systems (immune system, building new tissues, hormones, etc) so your body assures no protein ever leaves it through a waste mechanism, such as the urine.   This means there is, for some reason, a leakage of protein out of your son's kidneys, or perhaps some infection (I would think they could tell this from non-invasive urine tests, but the specialist has apparently exhausted these options).

So, a lower protein diet will not help whatever the problem is.  The protein in the urine is not the problem--it's an indicator, or symptom, of the problem.  Therefore, you really do need to pursue further investigation as to WHY the protein was there, as opposed to keeping it from showing up by changing the diet.

Again, a biopsy is an invasive test and I certainly hope the specialist at least did a follow-up urine sample to test for protein again before jumping along to suggest a biopsy next.  If you are not comfortable proceeding at this time, I would suggest you consider a second opinion to see what your options are or speak at length with the specialist to find out what he's hoping to find by performing a biopsy.  It is definitely important to ultimately figure out why the protein was present, and of course, if it still is (or was possibly a test error).

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